SOAP stands for Simple Object Access Protocol. The Force.com SOAP API (formerly known as the Force.com Web Services API) lets you integrate Force.com applications that can create, retrieve, update or delete records managed by Salesforce, Force.com, and Database.com, records such as accounts, leads, and custom objects.
SOAP brings its own protocol and focuses on exposing pieces of application logic (not data) as services.
SOAP exposes operations. SOAP is focused on accessing named operations, each implementing some business logic through different interfaces.
Advantages of SOAP API
- SOAP supports several protocols and technologies, including WSDL, XSDs and WS-Addressing.
- The Web Services Description Language (WSDL) describes a common set of rules to define the messages, bindings, operations
