Message Exchange Patterns

A message exchange pattern (MEP) is a template that describes the message exchange pattern between two communicating parties.

Mediation flows support two web service MEP for mediation and target operations:

• One-way (in-only): A message consumer sends a message to a provider.

  In this exchange, the mediation flow allows only an input path from the mediation operation. No output path is used. Fault paths exist to handle any errors produced by mediation tasks executing on the input path.To terminate the mediation of a one-way operation without invoking a target operation, use the End Mediation task.

• Request-response (in-out): A message consumer sends a message to a provider, and the provider sends a response message back to the consumer.
  In this exchange, the mediation flow has three paths:

  1. An input path for the message from the consumer to the provider
  2. An output path for the reply message
  3. A fault path for any faults that are encountered during processing