title: What is WS-Addressing good for?
body: <p>I am just getting started with SOAP web services and stumbled across WS-Addressing.</p>
  
  <p>I have read the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WS-Addressing">Wikipedia page</a>, but I'm having a hard time understanding just what the point of WS-Addressing is.</p>
  
  <p>According to Wikipedia and various sources on the web, WS-Addressing allows to put "addressing information" or "routing information" into the header of a SOAP request.</p>
  
  <p>Why is this useful? If I send a request via HTTP (or even via SMTP or UDP), then the address I send to is the address of the server which will process my request, and the server can simply reply by the same channel. So why is addressing/routing information needed?</p>
  
  <p>I'd be particularly interested in some real-world (more or less) example where WS-Addressing is helpful.</p>