Definition: Soap
This is a protocol for transmitting data in XML Format. It used to mean "Simple Object Access Protocol" but this was dropped in 2003.
Soap is independent of language, platform or communication protocol (though HTML is often used). It has made possible implementation of web services, where a web server offers a service. A soap message is sent to the server, it is processed and a return soap message sent. This simplifies interaction between computers running different operating systems or even different endian processors.
