OData Service. Service that is based on the OData protocol and exposes an OData entity data model that contains data organized and described in a standard manner.

OData Elements. Represents entity types and complex types in an OData service.

Entity Type. Entity types are named structured types with a key. For example, uniquely identifiable records such as a Customer or Employee.

External Entity Type. External entity types are entity types available through an external source provider. For example, if you select to use webMethods Adapter for JDBC as your external source provider or source type, you can use Database Tables as entity types to create your entities.

Complex Type. Structural types consisting of a list of properties but with no key. For example, Address, which includes city, street, state, and country. You can access a complex type only when they are added as a complex property to an entity type.

Properties. Used to define the characteristics of OData elements. For example, a Customer entity type may have properties such as CustomerId, Name, and Address. Properties can be simple or complex. Simple property can contain primitive types (such as a string, an integer, or a Boolean value). Complex property can contain structured data such as a complex type.

Associations. Represents the relationship between two entity types. For example, relationship between Customer and Order. An association has two ends and each end specifies the entity type attached to that end. Associations can be Single (unidirectional) or Bidirectional depending on the number of entity types that can be at that end of the association.

Navigation Property. Represents the association end and allows navigation from an entity to related entities. For example, Product can have a navigation property to Category and Category can, in return, have a navigation link to one or more products.