>>If I got it right, the state info is passed outside the SOAP message itself. If this is so, do you thing this is a commendable approach?
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>SOAP 3 is more compliant with the standard HTTP header. So, more information is passed in it and will keep the cookie state as well. If you extract the HTTP header from every message, you'll see that you have much more data available. As for the cookie state, this requires the client to have as well SOAP 3 and use it with a Web Service that requires it for specific manipulation.

Frankly, I have bad feelings about this: unless I'm missing something obvious, this is drifting away from the standard (not only we start to rely on external information carriers - and why should we? - but we are starting to confine our potential clients to a specific development framework). I know the cookie approach works but, at the risk of looking academic, what is the point of basing the interop communication on a protocol that is going to be contaminated?