Routing SOAP Messages with WSE

A distributed application using the Web Services Enhancements for Microsoft .NET (WSE) can be designed such that the network topology implementing the application is transparent to clients. Virtual names are created that are not the actual physical locations of a service, and then configuration data is used to map these virtual names to the real physical locations of the service.

More specifically, to set up a transparent network topology, an intermediate computer is set up and configured to run the WSE router. Clients then send the SOAP messages to the WSE router instead of directly to a Web service. The WSE router is configured to forward the SOAP message to the computer that is hosting the Web service. The computer hosting the Web service can then be changed and the data in the configuration file, known as a referral cache, on the computer that is hosting the WSE router can be modified to send requests to the new location. One of the benefits of using the WSE router with a distributed application is that a computer hosting a Web service can be taken offline for maintenance without modifying either the client code or its configuration.

In This Section

• How to: Configure the WSE SOAP Router
  Explains how to configure a WSE router and referral cache.

• How to: Route SOAP Messages Based Upon Their Content
  Explains how to provide content-based logic for a WSE router.

See Also

Other Resources

Perimeter Service Router
Implementing Perimeter Service Router in WSE 3.0