The "Entry Step" (required), which specifies the protocol (HTTP or HTTPS) and SOAP format (1.1 or 1.2) of the requests that the virtual service will accept.

The "Transform" step (optional), which performs an XSLT message transformation on the request message before it is submitted to the native service.

The "Invoke IS Service" step (optional), which pre-processes the request message before it is submitted to the native service.

The "Routing Rule" step (required), which specifies how the virtual service will route the service requests to the native service endpoint. There are four ways to route HTTP or HTTPS requests:

"Straight Through" routing (to route requests directly to the native service endpoint).

"Context-Based" routing (to route specific types of messages to specific endpoints according to context-based routing rules).

"Content-Based" routing (to route specific types of messages to specific endpoints based on specific values that appear in the request message).

"Load Balancing" routing (to distribute requests among multiple endpoints).