In general, whenever there is an outbound Web service that is available for use, the owner of that Web service has published a WSDL file describing the Web service and its invoke interface. This is the WSDL file that you want to import into the Enterprise Service Tools using the Import Web Services Definition wizard, as described in this topic. For a sample of such a file, see Sample Web service definition file.
Recall that an outbound Web service is any Web service that you invoke from within a flow belonging to a service flow project. The modifier outbound refers to the fact that the invoked Web service is external to the flow (see Outbound Web services subproject).
For more information about the artifacts generated by this wizard, see the subsection Files created when an outbound Web service definition is imported further on in this topic.
Importing an outbound Web service definition saves you the work of manually creating an operations file and a message file to define the invoke interface for an outbound Web service (see Basic information about operations for general information about operations).
After you generate an invoke interface for an outbound Web service, you must use the operations file that you generated to create an Invoke outbound Web services node within one of your flows (see Working with Invoke outbound Web service nodes).
When you click Finish, the wizard creates, in the outbound Web service subproject that you selected on the first page of the wizard, a set of files for each outbound Web service definition that you selected on the second page of the wizard (or for all the outbound Web service definitions in all the WSDL files listed on the first page of the wizard, if you clicked Finish on the first page).
For a description of each type of file, see the next section of this topic.
| Folder in the outbound Web service subproject: | Type of file created in the folder: | Example of type of file created: |
|---|---|---|
| Operations folder | An operations file containing an operation that defines an invoke interface for an outbound Web service definition | AddressBookW2JB.wsdl |
| Message folder | A message file containing the messages referenced by the operation. | AddressBookW2JBMessages.wsdl |
| Services folder |
|
|
| File: | Description: |
|---|---|
| Operations file | The operations file contains only one operation.
This operation contains the interface information needed to invoke
the outbound Web service, including a port type, a program name, and
references to an input message, an output message, and optionally
one fault message. Note: These operations files have the same
format as the operations files used in the Operations folder
of a nonterminal applications subproject, and similar content (see Working with operations and Operations editor).
Note: Unlike
operations for invoking other entities (such as an operation for invoking
a flow or an operation for invoking a nonterminal application), an
operation for invoking an outbound Web service supports a maximum
of only one fault message, which by default is the WS_SOAPFAULT_AREA
fault message (see The fault message for an Invoke outbound Web service node).
|
| Messages file | The messages file contains definitions of the
input message, the output message, and the fault messages (if any)
referenced by the operation in the operations file. Note: These message
files have the same format as the message files used in the Messages
folder of a nonterminal applications subproject, and similar content
(see Working with messages and Flow message editor).
|
| WSBind file | The WSBind file is used by CICS® at run time to convert data back and forth
between the WSDL format used to communicate with a Web service and
the binary data structures used by the runtime COBOL module of your
program that invokes the outbound Web service. Note: You may be required
to deploy this WSBind file to the host to which you are deploying
your runtime code (and on which you plan to run your runtime code):
|
| WSDL file | The WSDL file is optional but can be used by CICS at run time for logging and
debugging purposes. (This WSDL file is identical to the original WSDL
file that you imported -- that is, the WSDL file that you specified
on the first page of the Import Web Service Definitions wizard.) Note: For
logging and debugging purposes, you may want to deploy this WSDL file
to the host to which you are deploying your runtime code (and on which
you plan to run your runtime code):
|