WebLogic: The Definitive Guide

Reliable SOAP Messaging

WebLogic 8.1 supports a reliable SOAP messaging framework that enables an application hosted by one WebLogic instance to reliably invoke a web service hosted by another WebLogic instance. Reliability means that the sender will eventually know whether the SOAP message was received by the web service or if it was unable to deliver the message. In other words, WebLogic provides the sender with a transport guarantee only, and does not indicate whether the web service operation was invoked successfully. The sender must invoke the web service asynchronously and then either poll or register a listener to know whether the SOAP message was delivered.

WebLogic provides this reliability in the following ways:

• Both WebLogic instances that are involved store the message after it has been sent by the sender application and before it is received by the web service.

• The reliable SOAP messaging information is embedded in the headers of the SOAP message that must be delivered to the web service. For this reason, reliable SOAP messaging is independent of the transport mechanism used to invoke the web service — it can be used alongside either HTTP(S) or JMS transport.

• To ensure that the transport guarantees are enforced correctly at the web service end, WebLogic ensures that all actions at the receiver’s end are executed within a transaction context.

• If the receiver’s runtime fails to acknowledge the receipt of the SOAP message, the sender’s runtime can resend the message transparently. ...