Even though tools for analyzing problems for Simple Object Access Protocol have been around for a while, the increasing sophistication of what we try to do with the protocol has demanded increasingly sophisticated diagnostics.

Mindreef (see editorial links below) claims that its product SOAPscope is "the first software that allows for the complete capture and assembly of all evidence related to a Web services problem."

The company describes the latest release SOAPscope Version 4.0 as the first to enable "seamless sharing of these artifacts between developers, testers, operations and support teams - expediting the problem solving process and overcoming 'finger pointing' delays."

SOAPscope 4.0 is a very sophisticated tool that includes support for analyzing secure Web services using Secure Sockets Layer certificates and is the first tool to offer diagnostic support for the newly released WS-I Basic Profile 1.1 and WS-I Attachments Profile 1.0.

The product offers what Mindreef calls "Design & Prototype," the ability to evaluate a Web service by analyzing inputs and outputs, assessing how the service performs under load and edge conditions, and checking interoperability.

SOAPscope's debugging features support unit tests and a graph view makes data analysis based on response time, packet size and faults much simpler. The persistent logging feature automatically captures all SOAP traffic, and the integrated WS-I Testing Tools make regression testing straightforward.

A one-year license for SOAPscope running under Windows 2000 or Windows XP is just $99 (wow), which includes updates and technical support. A free 4-day evaluation is available.

Mark Gibbs is a consultant, author, journalist, columnist and blogger.