Chapter 6 Building an Executable BPM: Working with Service Description Objects

Service Providers (Executable BPM)

A service provider describes an object that gathers a set of service interfaces, for which it represents a namespace. It corresponds to the imported WSDL file. The XSD documents attached to a service provider allow you to visualize the data schemas extracted from the WSDL file.

It has no symbol in the Business Process Diagram but has the following graphical representation in the Browser:

Service providers in Business Service Diagrams

You can represent a service provider with its symbol in the Business Service Diagram. This diagram allows you to design dependencies between services with no implementation consideration. You can also display in the service provider symbol the service interfaces it contains and their operations.

For more information, see the Building a Process Service Diagram chapter.

The service provider is mandatory in the design of an executable process, as service interfaces must be created under a service provider.

For example a service provider "Travel Agent" may contain the following service interfaces: "TravelAgentToAirline" and "TravelAgentToTraveler".

When you copy a service provider, the service interfaces associated with it are also copied.

You cannot create shortcuts for a service provider.