SOAP over DCOM in the ArcGIS ADF explained

The ArcGIS Server Java ADF supports accessing the ArcGIS Server over the internet (http) as well as locally (dcom). Internet access uses SOAP. Local access can work with the server objects directly over DCOM or you can also issue SOAP calls over DCOM.

For local access, the ADF gives preference to SOAP over DCOM while it accesses the ArcObjects directly over DCOM only when the functionality is not available thru SOAP. There are 2 primary reasons why SOAP / DCOM is preferred to ArcObjects / DCOM:

• Performance
• Code reuse

Performance:

When you work with ArcObjects / DCOM the server gives you access to remote ArcObjects proxies (such as IMapDescription, ILayerDescription, etc.). Every method call on these proxies is a remote method call. So methods such IMapDescription.getName() and ILayerDescription.getID() are both remote method calls.

On the other hand, when you work with SOAP / DCOM, only the methods defined in the WSDLs are remote calls. Once you have made those remote calls, you get access to objects which are local value objects (such as MapDescription, LayerDescription, etc.). So methods such as MapDescription.getName() and ILayerDescription.getLayerID() are both local method calls.

As you can infer, ArcObjects / DCOM elicits more "chattiness" with the server than SOAP / DCOM. And the reduced number of remote calls in case of SOAP / DCOM obviously translates to better performance over the lifetime of your application.

Code reuse:

If you look at various functionalities supported by the ADF such as AGSMapFunctionality, AGSGeocodeFunctionality, etc., the same functionality classes are used for both internet and local access. This was possible because these functionalities were implemented by using the SOAP interface to the server. The transport is HTTP in case of internet access and DCOM in case of local access but the code remains the same allowing us to reuse the same functionality implementation in both cases.

Capabilities such as the EditingTask which are not available with SOAP have obviously been implemented by using ArcObjects / DCOM.

Bottom line:

In summary, if your functionality can be implemented by using the SOAP interface you should use it. The richness of ArcObjects / DCOM is of course always available to you in cases where SOAP does not suffice.