This doesn't work correctly, but is SOAP::Lite what I want if I want to do an http POST to jboss(8180) of all this XML data?

Not usually.

SOAP::Lite is for communicating via the SOAP protocol. It has two modes major modes: RPC and Document. (Either can be Literal or Encoded.)

You can send chunks of XML to SOAP services written to expect Document/* format, but it's really up to the SOAP service (regarding what it expects).

More likey, you'll be required to do a simple HTTP 'POST' to some HTML form published by the server-side Java.

If not, how would I post the hash'd data stored in $writer to that specific URL address?

However the receiving server process expects it? ;) Seriously, the server-like (being a Java thing) likely has documentation somewhere that you can read to figure out what protocol and content constraints are in place.

-David