High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Etch is an open source, cross-platform framework for building network services, first announced in May 2008 by Cisco Systems. Etch encompasses a service description language, a compiler, and a number of language bindings. It is intended to supplement SOAP and CORBA as methods of communicating between networked pieces of software, especially where there is an emphasis on portability, transport independence, small size, and high performance. Etch is designed to be easily incorporated into existing applications and systems, enabling a natural and easy transition to a service oriented architecture. It originally was derived from work on the Cisco Unified Application Environment, the product acquired by Cisco as part of the Metreos acquisition.