Re: XML versus SOAP/WSDL Performance

["Steven M. Bellovin" <smb@research.att.com>]

In message <3D8AFD97.5010606@ctit.utwente.nl>, Aiko Pras writes:
>Hi all
>
>Recently I've had a number of discussions on the performance differences 
>between network management approaches that use XML technology, and 
>approaches that use web services (SOAP/WSDL). Is there anyone who has 
>real experience in this area, or know pointers to studies on this?
>
>I want to create a list of potential performance problems. I'm aware of 
>the following issues thusfar:
>- SOAP/WSDL is more verbose than plain XML. Therefore more
>   bandwidth (and memory) will be needed.
>- downloading WSDL descriptions may be time consuming. In case
>   of standardized descriptions, it seems possible however to
>   caching or even hard-code them.
>- WSDL descriptions allow the inclusion of newly defined data types,
>   which must be downloaded from somewhere via the web. This may take
>   a lot of time.
>
>Useful reference i found:
>http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/webservices/library/ws-testsoap/#h3
>

Is "performance" really the issue?  Is there enough network management 
traffic that that's an issue?  I'd look more at the architectural and 
security questions.  (Note, though, that simply saying "XML" is 
insufficient, since you need to define a transport mechanism.)

		--Steve Bellovin, http://www.research.att.com/~smb (me)
		http://www.wilyhacker.com ("Firewalls" book)



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