You can integrate an external Web service into your solution to access an external application using the SOAP or REST protocol.

What is SOAP?

SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) is an xml-based protocol specification for exchanging structured information via Web services. The integrated Web service is described by a WSDL file. With SOAP, you can use different transport protocols, for example, HTTP or SMTP. SOAP uses named operations, each implementing business logic through different interfaces. WS-Security and Reliable Messaging are supported.

For more information, see Integrate an External Web Service Using SOAP.

What is REST?

REST (Representational State Transfer) is an architectural style for designing networked applications. REST services provide a uniform interface using standard HTTP operations (such as GET, POST, PUT...) and exchange representations of resources. JSON and XML are frequently used formats in REST services.

For more information, see Integrate an External Web Service Using REST.

To integrate REST Web services, you can also use a mashup. For more information, see Create a Mashup Web Service.

What is the difference between SOAP and REST?

The SOAP and REST protocols both provide a set of rules for requesting information from a server. The following table lists some of the differences. It should also help you decide which protocol to use for your integration scenario. Note also that Web services often support either REST or SOAP.

How do I integrate an external Web service into my solution?

The following graphic shows what you need to do to integrate an external Web service into your solution:

External Web Service Integration

The procedures for integrating SOAP and REST Web Services are very similar. However, the steps you need to take in the External Web Service Wizard are quite different as you can see in the following table: