Service Virtualization

Service Virtualization is one of the common categories of patterns for connectivity solutions.

The Service Virtualization patterns provide loose coupling between services by providing additional levels of direction through an Enterprise Service Bus. These patterns also address the requirements of mediation (for example, routing, protocol conversion, data transformation, and logging) between services when addressing connectivity requirements in a service-oriented architecture. Service virtualization patterns are typically used to address a number of distinct requirements, including provision of:
The following diagram illustrates an example of a Service Virtualization scenario:
The diagram shows an Enterprise Service Bus that is running two sets of Mediations. One set of Mediations is connected to a Service Consumer, two Service Providers and a Service Registry. The second set of Mediations is connected to a single Service Consumer and a Service Provider.