ASN.1 SOAP messages encoded using the ASN.1 Packed Encoding Rules generally
provides for the operation of Web services that require less processing power
(and hence provide a higher transaction processing rate) and that require less
network bandwidth than use of the character encoding of XML data in conventional
Web services. This can be advantageous in a number of domains:
1. Constrained devices, such as mobile phones, smart cards or even RFIDs
(Radio-Frequency IDentification), that have limited processing power, memory and
battery life.
There is no equivalent Moore's law for battery technology (battery life is
not doubling every 18 months).
2. Bandwidth restricted systems, such as wireless networks.
Radio frequencies for wireless networks, such as the mobile phone GSM network
(Global System for Mobile Communications), can be fixed for 10 years. There is
no equivalent Moore's law for radio frequencies (bandwidth is not doubling every
18 months).
3. High throughput transaction systems, such as systems required to
process a required number SOAP messages per second from many clients.
Research has shown that doubling the number of network nodes can result in an
increase in the interconnections between nodes to a power of 7 or 8, which is
much larger than an increase in processing power obtained from a doubling of
transistor density. This implies many more messages that need to be processed by
systems that are increasingly being outpaced by the network.
