Description:

Developed by the Spring community, Spring Web Services (Spring-WS) focuses on creating document-driven Web services. It aims to facilitate contract-first SOAP service development, allowing for the creation of flexible Web services. Benefits and features include:

• Developers can distribute an incoming XML request to any object, depending on message payload, SOAP Action header, or an XPath expression.
• Incoming XML messages can be handled in standard JAXP APIs such as DOM, SAX, and StAX or in JDOM, dom4j, XOM, or even marshalling technologies.
• Very manageable learning curve for developers familiar with Spring.
• Supports WS-Security. Integrated with Acegi Security.

Note that Spring-WS has some issues with versions of Java older than 1.6. Take a look at the FAQ for more detail (http://static.springframework.org/spring-ws/site/faq.html).

Usage Notes:

If you're working in Spring and need or want document driven Web Services, check out Spring Web Services.