The Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration (UDDI) specification defines a way to publish and discover information about Web services. The term Web service describes specific business functionality that is exposed by a company, usually through an Internet connection, to allow another company, its subsidiaries, or software program, to use the service.
You can find the UDDI specification on the OASIS UDDI Web page.
The UDDI specification defines a standard for the visibility, reusability, and manageability that are essential for a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) registry service.
The UDDI registry is a directory for Web services that is implemented using the UDDI specification. It is a component of WebSphere Application Server.
For example, the UDDI registry can be used in the following way within a larger enterprise:
The main aspects of the UDDI Version 3 specification that are provided within this version of WebSphere Application Server are as follows:
Improved recognition of the importance of private UDDI registries
Private UDDI registries are registries that are installed, owned, managed, and controlled by a separate body such as a department within a company, a company, an industry consortium, or an e-marketplace.
Publisher-assigned keys
Publisher-assigned keys mean that the publisher of a UDDI entity can specify its key, rather than having a unique key assigned by the registry. This function enables the use of more human-friendly, URI-based keys, which also makes it easier to manage multiple registries.
UDDI information model improvements
The UDDI data structures are extended in a number of ways, which improves the ability of UDDI to represent businesses and services through metadata.
Security enhancements
The introduction of digital signatures provides additional security. Each of the main UDDI entities can be digitally signed, which improves the integrity and trustworthiness of UDDI data.
Ownership transfer APIs
These APIs support the transfer of the ownership of a UDDI entity from one publisher to another.
UDDI policy
Setting the policy defines the behavior of a UDDI registry and recognizes the different environments in which a UDDI registry is used.
HTTP GET support for UDDI entities
The HTTP GET service is extended beyond the scope for discovery URLs that is a part of the UDDI Version 2 specification. With this service, you can use HTTP GET to access XML representations of each of the UDDI data structures.
In addition to support for the UDDI Version 3 specification, the Version 3 UDDI registry in this version of WebSphere Application Server provides the following capabilities:
Version 2 UDDI inquiry and publish SOAP API compatibility
Backward compatibility is maintained for the Version 1 and Version 2 SOAP inquiry and publish APIs.
UDDI administrative console extension
The WebSphere Application Server administrative console includes a section that administrators can use to manage UDDI-specific aspects of their WebSphere environment. This management includes the ability to set defaults for initialization of the UDDI node, such as its node ID, and to set the UDDI Version 3 policy values.
UDDI registry administrative interface
There is a Java Management Extensions (JMX) administrative interface so that administrators can manage UDDI-specific aspects of the WebSphere environment programmatically.
Multidatabase support
User-defined value set support
You can create your own categorization schemes or value sets, in addition to the standard schemes, such as North American Industry Classification System (NAICS), that are provided with the UDDI registry.
UDDI utility tools
UDDI utility tools support the import and export of entities using the UDDI Version 2 API.
UDDI user interface
The UDDI user console supports the inquiry and publish APIs, providing a similar level of support for the Version 3 APIs.
UDDI Version 3 client
The Java client for UDDI Version 3 handles the construction of raw SOAP requests for the client application. It is a JAX-RPC client and uses Version 3 data types, which are generated from the UDDI Version 3 Web Services Description Language (WSDL) and schema. These data types are serialized or deserialized to the XML, which constitutes the raw UDDI requests.
UDDI Version 2 clients