XML optimized packaging (SOAP) (XOP)

The World Wide Web Consortium(W3C) has developed XML Binary Optimized Packaging (XOP), a recommendation for accelerating Simple Object Access Protocol(SOAP) messages that contain binarydata.

The previous method of embedding binary information in the XML payload of the SOAP message resulted in an increase in data volume and a reduction in processing speed.

XOP, on the other hand, uses a MIME envelope in which the SOAP data and the binary information are packaged separately. With XOP, the SOAP message contains only a reference to the additional information.