What is Apache Axis?

“Axis is essentially a SOAP engine – a
  framework for constructing SOAP
  processors such as clients , servers,
  gateways etc”

        But Axis isn't just a SOAP engine -- it also includes:
a simple stand-alone server,
a server which plugs into servlet engines such as Tomcat,Weblogic etc
extensive support for the Web Service Description Language (WSDL),
emitter tooling that generates Java classes from WSDL.
 some sample programs, and
 a tool for monitoring TCP/IP packets.