What Are Web Service Descriptors?
A web service descriptor (WSD) is an element on Integration Server that defines a web service in IS terms. The WSD encapsulates all the information required by the provider or the consumer (requester) of a web service. The WSD contains the message formats, data types, transport protocols, and transport serialization formats that should be used between the consumer (requester) and the provider of the web service. It also specifies one or more network locations at which a web service can be invoked. In essence, the WSD represents an agreement governing the mechanics of interacting with that service.
A
provider web service descriptor defines a web service that is hosted on the
Integration Server, that is, a service “provided” to external users. A provider web service descriptor will expose one or more IS services as
operations, which can be published to a registry as a single web service. External users can access the web service through the registry and invoke the IS services remotely.
A
consumer web service descriptor defines an external web service, allowing
Integration Server to create a
web service connector (WSC) for each operation in the web service. The web service connector(s) can be used in
Designer just like any other IS flow service; when a connector is invoked it calls a specific operation of a web service. In version 9.0 and later,
Integration Server also creates a response service for each operation in the web service. Response services are flow services to which you can add custom logic to process asynchronous SOAP responses.