Pronunciation

A type of API protocol allowing disparate operating systems to communicate. The protocol consists of a request by a client system to another system, which receives the request and transmits a response using an encoded message.

SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) is a common protocol that leverages HTTP or SMTP as the transport mechanism and XML to define the data format of the message, the transport protocols and the location. SOAP can include security verification and has built in retry logic for failed communication transmissions.

REST (Representational State Transfer) is a type of architecture style that utilizes any web service protocol, including SOAP. Multiple data formats are permitted, including XML, HTML, plain text and JSON.

​