ACS Service Contract Overview
by Neophytos Demetriou (k2pts@yahoo.com) and Kapil Thangavelu (k_vertigo@yahoo.com)


Goals

- To increase inter-application code reuse by designating interfaces for interaction.

- To increase flexibility by allowing developers to reimplement an interface for their needs.

- To provide the framework for constructing web services by housing the metadata needed to construct wsdl.

- To be low impediment to developers to create interfaces for their packages.

- To reduce fixed dependencies in packages.


Definitions

Interface - An abstract set of operations supported by one or more endpoints.

Operation - An abstract description of an action supported by the service.

Binding - A concrete implementation for a particular interface.

Function - The implementation of an operation.


Actors

Registrar - An entity that defines the specification of a contract and registers it with the repository.

Provider - Provides an implementation of the contract.

Dependent - Something that uses a contract.