Web Service Agents

Owned by Kevin Wu
Last updated: Jan 03, 2024
3 min read

This section describes the Web Service profile and agents. The agents are collection and processing agents for real-time workflow configurations.

Prerequisites

The reader of this information should be familiar with:

  • Web Services

  • WSDL

Overview

Web Service is a software system that supports interaction between computers over a network. The Web Service agents communicate through SOAP in XML syntax, and use WSDL files.

The Web Service agents support:

  • Web Service Interoperability Organization Basic Profile 1.1

  • WSDL 1.1

  • XML 1.0

  • SOAP 1.1

  • Partial support of Web Service Security 1.1

  • HTTP 1.1

  • HTTP Basic Access Authentication

  • Updatable Authorization header per request

  • HTTPS

  • IPv4 and IPv6

The mustUnderstand attribute is only supported in Web Service Security headers. 

To enable Web Service transactions:

  1. Define a Web Service (WS) profile or profiles.

  2. Include the Web Service agents and their configurations in a workflow.



The Web Service Agents

There are two Web Service agents that you can include in real-time workflows in the workflow configuration dialog:

  • The Web Service Provider agent

  • The Web Service Request agent

Web Service Provider Agent

The Web Service Provider agent works in the same way as a Service Provider, or server, in the sense that it receives requests from a client, or clients, and transfers the requests to a workflow.

In a synchronous operation, when the collection agent receives a reply back from the workflow, it delivers the response to the requesting client.

In an asynchronous operation the collection agent does not receive any reply, and therefore does not respond the client.

The Web Service Provider - synchronous operation

The Web Service Provider - asynchronous operation

Web Service Request Agent

The Web Service Request agent works in the same way as a Service Requester, or a client, that sends a request to a server, where a certain service is available.

In a synchronous operation, when the processing agent receives a reply, it delivers the reply to its configured output.

In an asynchronous operation, the requester does not receive any reply and does not deliver one, either.

The Web Service Requester

The Web Service Requester - asynchronous operation