PDA

View Full Version : Anyone use SOAP?



Beowulf
13th-January-2007, 07:07 PM
or are you all smelly greasy beggars? (Thought I'd get the oh-so-obvious and oh-so-unfunny jokes out of the way at the onset)

Ok, here's the low-down. We have a legacy application here (and by legacy I mean Noah used it on the Arc!) It's part of our online condition monitoring system it exports data from our various applications into (dare I say it) MS Access where it's chopped , sliced , diced and puréed and mixed into one homogeneous dataset then uploaded via ODBC to our MySQL server where it's later queried by our PHP scripts for web viewing. With me so far?

Our current server is/was a Linux box running Apache and MySQL. We now have a Windows server box, running IIS and are in the process of using ASP to generate the webpages.

However, it's been asked that we look at other ways of getting the data up to the server. and SOAP seems to be they current buzzword in the meetings at the moment. it's been passed from person to person and it's ended up in my lap.

Now I'm familiar with XML and on first inspection SOAP didn't seem to difficult. But can I get the B*ggering thing to work! We've discussed many options, having a local SQL Server database and use their native SOAP tools to pass data up and down from local to t'internet.

However, we're extending the software so our clients can upload their data to the webserver. At the moment they send it to us, we process it and we upload it (ODBC needing direct access to the server) we'd like to upload the data over HTTP or HTTPS from their sites and the processing being done by them , that way they can control how much and how often data is refreshed.

The development platform I'm using is a hodgepodge of ASP.NET , C# (Visual Studio 2005) and there's been discussion of using the .Net compact framework so data can be uploaded over wifi from out Pocket PC data collectors directly

hehe.. I'm drowning in information. There's loads of info out there but it's either so abstract to be useless or so specific for C++ or Apache or something else it doesn't port easily to out development platform.

I know I'd be better asking this on a specific database / web services forum.. but I know there's some very clever people here and I thought I'd ask the question here as well.

Anyone used soap, and can give me any pointers/information?

Thanks in advance.

and please, if at all possible lets us keep the witty and unhelpful comments to the chit chat threads? thanks.

Pete

rubyred
14th-January-2007, 03:28 AM
or are you all smelly greasy beggars? (Thought I'd get the oh-so-obvious and oh-so-unfunny jokes out of the way at the onset)

Ok, here's the low-down. We have a legacy application here (and by legacy I mean Noah used it on the Arc!) It's part of our online condition monitoring system it exports data from our various applications into (dare I say it) MS Access where it's chopped , sliced , diced and puréed and mixed into one homogeneous dataset then uploaded via ODBC to our MySQL server where it's later queried by our PHP scripts for web viewing. With me so far?

Our current server is/was a Linux box running Apache and MySQL. We now have a Windows server box, running IIS and are in the process of using ASP to generate the webpages.

However, it's been asked that we look at other ways of getting the data up to the server. and SOAP seems to be they current buzzword in the meetings at the moment. it's been passed from person to person and it's ended up in my lap.

Now I'm familiar with XML and on first inspection SOAP didn't seem to difficult. But can I get the B*ggering thing to work! We've discussed many options, having a local SQL Server database and use their native SOAP tools to pass data up and down from local to t'internet.

However, we're extending the software so our clients can upload their data to the webserver. At the moment they send it to us, we process it and we upload it (ODBC needing direct access to the server) we'd like to upload the data over HTTP or HTTPS from their sites and the processing being done by them , that way they can control how much and how often data is refreshed.

The development platform I'm using is a hodgepodge of ASP.NET , C# (Visual Studio 2005) and there's been discussion of using the .Net compact framework so data can be uploaded over wifi from out Pocket PC data collectors directly

hehe.. I'm drowning in information. There's loads of info out there but it's either so abstract to be useless or so specific for C++ or Apache or something else it doesn't port easily to out development platform.

I know I'd be better asking this on a specific database / web services forum.. but I know there's some very clever people here and I thought I'd ask the question here as well.

Anyone used soap, and can give me any pointers/information?

Thanks in advance.

and please, if at all possible lets us keep the witty and unhelpful comments to the chit chat threads? thanks.

Pete

O silly me, here I was all set to tell you not to use soap cos it drys out your skin :rolleyes: Well there you go!:whistle:

Beowulf
14th-January-2007, 11:40 AM
O silly me, here I was all set to tell you not to use soap cos it drys out your skin :rolleyes: Well there you go!:whistle:

:rolleyes: :rolleyes:

Miguel
14th-January-2007, 06:05 PM
So, does anyone have any advice for banishing the dog stench?

Yes, use soap. Lots of it. You may have to take up the carpets and underlay. Scrub the floorboards with.... Sorry, wrong thread. :blush:

frodo
14th-January-2007, 06:14 PM
or are you all smelly greasy beggars? (Thought I'd get the oh-so-obvious and oh-so-unfunny jokes out of the way at the onset)

Ok, here's the low-down. We have a legacy application here (and by legacy I mean Noah used it on the Arc!) It's part of our online condition monitoring system it exports data from our various applications into (dare I say it) MS Access where it's chopped , sliced , diced and puréed and mixed into one homogeneous dataset then uploaded via ODBC to our MySQL server where it's later queried by our PHP scripts for web viewing. With me so far?

Our current server is/was a Linux box running Apache and MySQL. We now have a Windows server box, running IIS and are in the process of using ASP to generate the webpages.

However, it's been asked that we look at other ways of getting the data up to the server. and SOAP seems to be they current buzzword in the meetings at the moment. it's been passed from person to person and it's ended up in my lap.

Now I'm familiar with XML and on first inspection SOAP didn't seem to difficult. But can I get the B*ggering thing to work! We've discussed many options, having a local SQL Server database and use their native SOAP tools to pass data up and down from local to t'internet.


If you're just doing a simple data upload, just encoding it into XML and posting it over http, can save a whole lot of hassle.

Warwick
15th-January-2007, 01:45 AM
Stupid question #1 is there a reason not to continue with Apache and MySQL? It'll run perfectly happily on 'doze.

Beowulf
15th-January-2007, 08:59 AM
Stupid question #1 is there a reason not to continue with Apache and MySQL? It'll run perfectly happily on 'doze.

sorry I didn't make myself clear. We're ditching Linux, Apache and MySQL to go with Windows server , IIS and SQL Server.

But I think the problem really is that management have latched onto this buzzword and seem to think it's the holy grail of web development at the moment. Was even asked the other day if "I'd be using SOAP" for a 100% local database with no web access :rolleyes:

From what I've read SOAP isn't the answer we're looking for as we have a metric sh*tload (not to be confused with an imperial sh*tload which is three buckets lighter) of data to upload very frequently and I've read that SOAP is not good with large datasets.

I personally would like to just upload any changed records, add any new ones, delete removed ones.. but due to something we can't easily change at the moment it's a whole dataset wipe and replace routine at the moment.

Think it's time to look for another job :rolleyes: :wink:

Beowulf
17th-January-2007, 10:26 AM
I've given up on the idea of using SOAP and am not just streaming data over a socket to the webserver. Sometimes the simplest methods are the best :)