SOAP’s main strengths are its neutrality and use of standard Internet infrastructure.

• Because a SOAP message is just an XML document carried in a SOAP envelope, any platform or language that can parse XML can create/consume it (platform/language independence).

• The envelope plus XML body is the NORMAL, W3C-defined SOAP payload format, so two endpoints can exchange messages over any network that supports the chosen transport.

• When SOAP is bound to HTTP (the most common binding), it rides on port 80/443, a port already opened on almost every proxy and firewall, so messages are rarely blocked.

A. SOAP itself is stateless; maintaining server-side state requires additional specifications (e.g., WS-Session) or custom coding.

D. “Cleaning agent” wording is non-technical; SOAP does not remove data—it adds XML markup.

E. SOAP formatting is rigidly defined (Envelope/Header/Body) by the W3C spec; the contract (WSDL) is fixed, yielding strong coupling in message structure.

1. W3C. “SOAP Version 1.2 Part 0: Primer”, §1 & §2 (XML payload, platform neutrality).

https://www.w3.org/TR/soap12-part0/

2. Oracle Cloud Infrastructure – “Developing and Securing Web Services”, Oracle Fusion Middleware 14c, ch. 3 (“SOAP Advantages: Language and Platform Independence; Works through Firewalls”).

3. MIT OpenCourseWare, 6.170 “Software Studio”, Lecture on Web Services, slides 14-16 (SOAP over HTTP rarely blocked; XML payload).

4. P. Fremantle & H. Weerasinghe, “Web Services Framework”, IEEE Internet Computing 8(2):62-69, 2004, §“Transport Independence and Firewalls”. DOI:10.1109/MIC.2004.1273204

5. Oracle Integration Cloud Service – “Using SOAP Connections”, PDF 2023-10, p. 2 (“SOAP messages use strict XML envelope; state handled externally”).