Service Descriptor
How can development tools acquire the information necessary to use a web service, and how can the code for Service Connectors be generated?
Client applications must know the required URIs, media types, messages, and server methods to use
when invoking specific web services. Traditional documentation and unit tests can't be used as input
to workflow development tools or by code generation tools that produce
Service Connectors,
nor can this information be read by automated agents at runtime.
To help achieve these objectives, service owners may offer machine-readable service metadata.
Produce a standardized and machine-readable description of related services that identifies URIs, logical operations, messages, server methods, and usage policies.
Service Descriptors are used to generate the code for Service Connectors and to facilitate the integration of services
into workflows. They provide a consolidated, machine-readable listing that identifies a set of
logical operations or resources that are managed by a single organization. The metadata for each
operation or resource identifies a single web service and the messages (or
media types)
it receives and returns. The descriptor may provide a base URI for all web services. Alternatively,
individual operations (or resources) may extend or override this URI with their own addresses
or addressing protocols. Policies that identify the protocols for authentication, data encryption,
data signing, and reliable message delivery, to name a few items , may also appear in the descriptor.