Service invocation styles
Using IBM® Workflow
Server, you can make service invocations using a Service
Invoke mediation primitive, or a Callout node. The service invocation interacts with the invoked
service in different ways. The invocation can be synchronous or asynchronous. There are further
variations for an asynchronous invocation. The choice of synchronous, or the specific type of
asynchronous interaction is termed the Service invocation style
. Service invocations can be
made by both request and response flows.
- Synchronous
- Asynchronous with deferred response
- Asynchronous with callback
- Asynchronous one way
The synchronous invocation style is often the fastest. Using the synchronous invocation style, a mediation flow can share a global transaction with a service. The mediation flow processing continues when the service returns a response.
The asynchronous styles provide a separation between the processing carried out by the mediation flow, and the service. This is necessary if an operation takes a significant amount of time for the service to complete, or where it is required that the service invocation is not carried out, until all mediation flow processing is complete.