Jakarta Web Services Metadata Explained

Jakarta Web Services Metadata (JWS; formerly Web Services Metadata for Java platform and Java Web Services), as a part of Jakarta XML Web Services (JAX-WS), is a Java programming language specification (JSR-181) primarily used to standardize the development of web service interfaces for the Jakarta EE platform.

Using annotations from the JSR 181, you can annotate a Web service implementation class or a Web service interface. It enables developers to create portable Java Web Services from a simple plain old Java object (POJO) class by adding annotations, and also helps in generating a Web service with a wizard or by publishing the service on to a server.

Some of the annotations specified by this JSR are:

@WebService
@WebMethod
@Oneway
@WebParam
@WebResult
@HandlerChain
@SOAPBinding

Put simply, JSR 181 is a specification to define standard and portable web services. It offers the following benefits:

Provide a simplified model for developing web services
Abstract the implementation details
Achieve robustness, easy maintenance, and high interoperability^[1]

Version is 2.1 was released on December 15, 2009.^[2]

Notes and References

Web site: Simplify Your Web Services Development with JSR 181. 28 February 2008.
Web site: The Java Community Process(SM) Program - JSRS: Java Specification Requests - detail JSR# 181.