of Handlers to implement common patterns of processing for your applications, or to distribute to partners. Transport Framework We have a clean and simple abstraction for integrating and using Transports (i.e., senders and listeners for SOAP over various protocols such as SMTP, FTP, message-oriented middleware, etc.), and the core of the engine is completely transport-independent. WSDL support Axis2 supports the Web Services Description Language, version 1.1 and 2.0, which allows you to easily build stubs to access remote services, and also to automatically export machine-readable descriptions of your deployed services from Axis2. Add-ons Several Web services specifications have been incorporated including WSS4J for security (Apache Rampart), Sandesha for reliable messaging, Kandula which is an encapsulation of WS-Coordination, WS-AtomicTransaction and WS-BusinessActivity. Composition and Extensibility Modules and phases improve support for composability and extensibility. Modules support composability and can also support new WS-* specifications in a simple and clean manner. They are however not hot deployable as they change the overall behavior of the system. Axis2 Modules Axis2 modules provide QoS features like security, reliable messaging, etc. Apache Rampart module Apache Rampart modules adds WS-Security features to Axis2 engine Apache Sandesha module An implementation of WS-ReliableMessaging specification Related technologies Apache Axis Apache CXF, other Apache web services framework (old XFire & Celtix) Java Web Services Development Pack, web services framework XML Interface for Network Services, RPC/web services framework Web Services Invocation Framework, Java API for invoking Web services Axis2 Books Axis 2 knowledge base References External links Apache Axis Homepage at the Apache Software Foundation Apache Axis2/Java at the Apache Software Foundation Apache Axis2/C at the Apache Software Foundation Apache Axis2 Module Page Web services using Apache Axis2 How to run an Axis2 client running against a Windows Web Server - Rob Austin Axis2 Tutorial Axis2 Web services Web service specifications Java enterprise platform