An adapter service defines an operation that the adapter will perform on an adapter resource. Adapter services operate like Integration Server flow services or Java services. You call adapter services within flow or Java services, and you can audit them from the Integration Server's audit system.

Adapter services have input and output signatures. An input signature describes the data that the service expects to find in the flow service pipeline at run time. An output signature describes the data that the service expects to add to the pipeline when it has successfully executed. You can view an adapter service node's signature on the Input/Output tab of the Adapter Service Editor in Software AG Designer.

Adapter services are based on templates provided with each adapter. Each template represents a specific technique for doing work on a resource, such as using the a template to retrieve specified information from a database.

An adapter service template contains all the code necessary for interacting with the resource but without the data specifications. You provide these specifications when you create a new adapter service in Designer. Before configuring an adapter service, you must assign it a connection that you created earlier.