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Introduction
The Security and Readiness Assessment of APIs program (SOAP In Ready) is an industry-wide initiative to help organizations design, build, document and deploy secure APIs. As part of this initiative, there are a set of standards that an organization needs to meet to be able to label their APIs as being compliant with the SOAP In Ready program.
These standards are commonly referred to as assertion requirements, which are a collection of conditions and statements that must be met in order for an API to be considered compliant with the program. These assertion requirements aren’t just checklists but rather a way for you — as an implementer or service provider — to understand how you can make your API more secure by eliminating common security mistakes as well as best practices for deploying your API securely.
Why are Assertions Important?
Assertions are essential because they help ensure the service is being used correctly. You can think of them as unit tests for your API. You can use them to test conditions or business rules that you have implemented in your system. Assertions are similar to unit tests in ensuring that code is used correctly. But they're different because they don't have to be executed as part of a build process. The API consumers can use them as part of their code to validate that the API is being used correctly. Assertions are essential for two reasons:
They make the API more readable.
They reduce the amount of error handling code.
Create an SOAP Compliance Assertion
First, you will need to create a compliance assertion. Let’s say that when you log in to the API, you want to make sure the correct user is logged in. To do this, create a new assertion by clicking the Assertions button in the side menu. This will bring you to the Assertions tab in the API editor. Next, click Create New Assertion. You will see an empty assertion form. Here, you will add the information about the compliance assertion. You can add as many or as few fields as you want. The first field is the name of the assertion. In this example, we’ll name it Login. Next, choose the SOAP Compliance assertion type. Once you do this you will be able to add the specific SOAP compliance fields to your assertion.
SOAP Request Assertion
Go to the log tab and click on 'Add Insertions' at the top of it.
Now, in the 'Add Assertion' Dialog, select the ‘Compliance, Status and Standards' category.
Under this category of assertions, choose 'SOAP Request Assertion.'
The Not SOAP Fault assertion verifies that a SOAP Fault element is not present in the most recent response you received.
SOAP Response Assertion
Go to the log tab and click on 'Add Insertions' at the top of it.
Now, in the 'Add Assertion' Dialog, select the ‘Compliance, Status and Standards' category.
Under this category of assertions, choose 'SOAP Response Assertion.'
The SOAP Response assertion verifies that the most recent response you received is indeed a legitimate SOAP response.
SOAP Fault Assertion
Go to the log tab and click on 'Add Insertions' at the top of it.
Now, in the 'Add Assertion' Dialog, select the ‘Compliance, Status and Standards' category.
Under this category of assertions, choose 'SOAP Fault Assertion.'
The SOAP Fault assertion determines whether a SOAP Fault element is present in the most recent response you received.
Not SOAP Fault Assertion
Go to the log tab and click on 'Add Insertions' at the top of it.
Now, in the 'Add Assertion' Dialog, select the ‘Compliance, Status and Standards' category.
Under this category of assertions, choose 'Not SOAP Fault Assertion.'
The Not SOAP Fault assertion verifies that a SOAP Fault element is not present in the most recent response you received.
Standard SOAP IN Ready API Compliance Assertion Use Cases
Let's look at common use cases for SOAP In-ready API compliance assertions. We'll walk you through the types of assertions and provide examples for each use case. - Authentication - Authentication is one of the most critical aspects of an API. It won't be accepted if a request doesn't include the correct authentication information. - Rate limiting - To ensure that an API isn't abused, you can use rate limiting assertions. The API gateway can be configured to decline requests exceeding the configured rate limits. - Throttling - Throttling is similar to rate limiting, except it uses a sliding scale. For example, if a consumer sends five GET requests in a minute, the first request may return successfully. But the subsequent four submissions will be rejected because they exceed the configured throttling limits. - Status codes - Confirming that the response of the API is as expected is essential. This includes the status codes and any other response headers. - Content-type - One of the most common uses of assertions is to confirm that the content type returned by the API is correct. For example, an API may return an application/JSON for a POST request.
Error Handling with Assertions
The best way to handle errors with assertions is to use an error-first call approach. This means that you always expect the API to fail. You then use the errors returned by the API to identify the problem's source. This approach has three advantages: It makes the code more readable. It subsequently reduces the amount of code needed to handle the error. It has a better failure diagnosis. The error-first approach also applies to positive assertions. You should expect a successful response. If the API returns an error, it indicates that it failed. You can use the error to determine the cause of the problem. Here's an example of an error-first approach. Let's say that you expect the API to return an application/JSON response and a 201 status code. If the API returns a 500 Internal Server Error, you can use the error code to diagnose the problem.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do SOAP Web Services work?
The XML-based protocol known as SOAP is defined as a simple object access protocol. In addition to facilitating communication between applications created on many platforms using various programming languages over the internet, SOAP is also known for creating and building web services. Platform and language independence define SOAP.
Please describe the main challenge that SOAP users confront.
A firewall security system is the main challenge users of SOAP face. Few ports, such as HTTP port 80 and the HTTP port utilized by SOAP to get through the firewall, are not locked by this method. Technically, SOAP is criticized for combining the requirements for message structure and message transit.
When should you use the SOAP API?
For records like accounts, leads, and usage-defined objects, use the SOAP API to create, get, update, or remove them. Using the SOAP API in any language that supports web services will allow you to manage passwords, conduct searches, and more with more than 20 distinct calls.
What methods are there for creating web services based on SOAP?
Two distinct approaches are available for creating SOAP-based web services, and they are described below:
A method known as the "contract-first approach" derives Java classes from the contract, which is initially established via XML and WSDL. The contract, which is often the WSDL file from the Java class, is generated last using the contract-last approach, which involves first defining the Java classes. The most common strategy is "contract-first."
Conclusion
We have briefly discussed Compliance Assertions - SOAP in Ready API along with the topics including creation of request assertion, response assertion and SOAP FAULT/NOT SOAP FAULT assertion for WS Addressing. We hope that we have helped you gain a better grip over the topic of Compliance Assertions - SOAP in Ready API with the help of this article.
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