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Does PME Web Applications use SOAP (simple object access protocol) or WSDL (web services description language)?

Issue
A customer would like to know if PME Web Applications use SOAP (simple object access protocol) or WSDL (web services description language).

Product Line
Power Monitoring Expert 8.x / 7.x

Environment
Web Applications

Resolution
Both SOAP and WSDL are used.
SOAP is the protocol that several services in PME use.
WSDL is short for Web Service Description Language. It is a metadata format that describes the services and how to interact with it programmatically.

SOAP - technology used to implement the service.
WSDL - describes how the system works

To see this in PME browse to the following url http://localhost/IONReportDataService/ReportDataService.asmx. To see the WSDL click the link Service Description. You should see a bunch of XML describing the service, eg methods you can call, parameters and return values.

Click back and now click GetViewData. You get more XML but this show the sample SOAP messages the service will use internally.

Our more modern services for apps like dashboards etc do not use SOAP or WSDL. Rather they are REST style services which use JSON.