SOAP vs REST: Comparing a master-slave GA implementation

TL;DR

This paper compares SOAP and REST web service approaches through experiments involving a client-server model and a master-slave genetic algorithm, highlighting efficiency differences mainly due to communication verbosity.

Contribution

It provides an empirical comparison of SOAP and REST in the context of parallel systems, specifically analyzing their performance in a GA implementation.

Findings

REST is faster than SOAP due to less communication overhead.

SOAP's XML messaging increases parsing time, making it heavier.

Both approaches are suitable for parallel systems, with REST being more efficient.

Abstract

In this paper, a high-level comparison of both SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) and REST (Representational State Transfer) is made. These are the two main approaches for interfacing to the web with web services. Both approaches are different and present some advantages and disadvantages for interfacing to web services: SOAP is conceptually more difficult (has a steeper learning curve) and more "heavy-weight" than REST, although it lacks of standards support for security. In order to test their eficiency (in time), two experiments have been performed using both technologies: a client-server model implementation and a master-slave based genetic algorithm (GA). The results obtained show clear differences in time between SOAP and REST implementations. Although both techniques are suitable for developing parallel systems, SOAP is heavier than REST, mainly due to the verbosity of SOAP communications (XML increases the time taken to parse the messages).