Software Architect's Handbook

Service descriptions

In order for services to interact with each other, they must be aware of each other. Service descriptions serve the important purpose of providing this awareness. They provide information about the available services so that potential consumers can decide whether a particular service will satisfy their needs.

Service descriptions help to foster loose coupling, an important principle of SOAs. Dependencies between services are minimized as services can work together simply through the awareness they have of each other through their service descriptions.

Any service that wants to act as an ultimate receiver must have service description documents. Service descriptions typically have both abstract and concrete information. ...