Web services are self-contained, application functions that can be described, published, located, and invoked over the Internet. Web services use XML to code and to decode data, and SOAP to transport data using open protocols, typically HTTP.
Web Services Provider
A Web Services Provider creates and exposes a service and can publish the availability of the WSDL that describes the service.
Web Services Consumer
A Web Services Consumer discovers a desired service and launches a request to the service provider.
Web Services Relay
A Web Services Relay acts as both consumer and provider in an intermediary position for an exchange between an endpoint consumer and provider pair. In this intermediary role, Activator may provide additional processing.
Activator supports:
For Web Services provider mode, Activator supports the following features:
The Web Services that you provide to partner service consumers are typically two-way services.
For Web Services consumer mode, Activator supports the following features:
The web services that you consume from partner service providers are typically two-way services.