9.4. Example SOAP Server and Client

As of this writing, server-side implementations of SOAP services are virtually nonexistent. The few that do exist stray from the emerging standards and are likely to continue to morph as they discover what the users really want.

The most stable web service sample implementations come from Microsoft and IBM. In this section, we create a Python client that utilizes the calculator service that ships with Microsoft's free SOAP Toolkit 2.0, available from http://msdn.microsoft.com. As such, the service must run on either Windows NT Server 4.0 or Windows 2000 Server. The clients may run anywhere COM runs. The toolkit sets up very easily on these platforms, and is ready to go after the install script is finished.