Microsoft Dynamics NAV web service protocols

From NAV objects, you can publish two types of web service:

• SOAP web services
• OData web services

Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) is an XML-based, platform-independent, and language-independent messaging protocol for exchanging information via the Internet. SOAP enables client applications to easily connect to remote services and invoke remote methods.

The most common type of messaging pattern in SOAP is the Remote Procedure Call (RPC), where one network node (the client) sends a request message to another node (the server), and the server sends a response message back to the client.

Open Data Protocol (OData) is a web protocol that is designed for querying tabular data. The protocol enables the creation and consumption of Representational State Transfer (REST) APIs using normal HTTP messages.

The OData standard is good for web service applications that require a uniform, flexible, general purpose interface for exposing Create, Retrieve, Update, Delete (CRUD) operations on a tabular data model to clients.

As described in the official protocol definition, it supports Representational State Transfer (REST) based data services, which enable resources, identified using Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs), and defined in an Abstract Data Model (Entity Data Model), to be published and edited by Web clients within corporate networks and across the Internet using simple HTTP messages.

Whereas SOAP web service expose a WSDL document, OData web service expose an EDMX document containing metadata for all published web services (useful when you need to create a proxy code for an application that uses the OData services).

You can reach this metadata by using the OData URL at http://yourserver:port/OData/$metadata.