This topic applies only to the IBM Business Automation Workflow Advanced configuration.

Web service binding

Edit online
Draft comment:
This topic only applies to BAW, and is located in the BAW repository. Last updated on 2025-01-20 10:38
A web service import binding allows you to call an external web service from your Service Component Architecture (SCA) component. A web service export binding allows you to expose your SCA component to clients, as web services.

What is a web service?

IBM® Workflow Server defines a web service as an application that has an interface and uses SOAP messages to communicate over a network. The interface is described using a Web Services Description Language (WSDL). Both WSDL and SOAP are XML-based formats.

A WSDL describes a service by defining:
  • the network endpoints where the service can be found
  • the network protocol used to communicate with the service
  • the operations that can be carried out by the service
  • the format of the messages that can be received and produced by each operation
A SOAP message contains two sections that are structured together in a SOAP envelope. The two sections are:
  • SOAP body, which contains the actual message data in the format described by the WSDL.
  • SOAP header, which can contain additional contextual data about the message, for example; security, routing or quality of service information.

The WSDL and SOAP specifications are extensible, allowing further specifications to be built on top, to provide additional functionality. For example, the WS-Security specification extends SOAP, to add security to web services. There are many extension specifications and they are collectively referred to as WS-* standards.

Using the web service binding, Workflow Server can send and receive SOAP version 1.1 and SOAP version 1.2 messages and can be configured to send and receive messages over the HTTP, HTTPS and JMS protocols.

Workflow Server uses WSDL version 1.1 as the primary interface specification for SCA components. When an export uses the web service binding, the interface WSDL is extended with additional network endpoint and protocol information to form a complete description of the web service that Workflow Server is now providing.

Workflow Server allows access to both the SOAP body data in the SMO body section and the SOAP header data in the SMO header section, allowing mediation flows to alter, append or remove SOAP message data as required. The web service binding always handles request/response interactions synchronously, regardless of the transport protocol that is used to convey the SOAP message. This means that a mediation flow that calls a web service import binding is blocked until a response is received from the web service provider.