WebSphere Application Server V7.0: Concepts ... - IBM Redbooks

11.4 Web services architecture
The basic SOA consists of the following three primary components, as shown in
Figure 11-1:
► Service provider (or service producer)
The service provider creates a service and possibly publishes its interface
and accesses information to the service broker. Another name for the service
provider is the service producer. The terms are interchangeable.
► Service requestor (or service consumer)
The service requestor locates entries in the broker registry using various find
operations and then binds to the service provider in order to invoke one of its
services. Another name for the service requestor is the service consumer.
The terms are interchangeable.
► Service broker (or service registry)
The service broker is responsible for making the service interface and
implementation access information available to any potential service
requestor. The service broker is not necessary to implement a service if the
service requestor already knows about the service provider by other means.
Each component can act as one of the two other components. For example, if a
service provider needs some more information that it can only acquire from some
other service, it acts as a service requestor while still serving the original request.
Figure 11-1 shows the operations each SOA component can perform.
Service
Broker
Publish Discover
Service
Provider
Request/Response
Figure 11-1 SOA components and operations
Service
Requestor
Chapter 11. Web services 363