The concept of an interface in the Registry is little different from the way it has been understood for many years in information processing. A definition of how arguments are to be passed to a function or method and how values are to be returned, a Registry interface is essentially a mapping of the UDDI WSDL portType.
Web service interfaces can be much more complex than their standard programming language cousins. They define operations and the message types that these operations produce and consume. They also define what types of faults or error messages can be expected when processing on the service side leads to handled and unhandled exceptions.
Interface records in the registry will often be accompanied with status and classification information to help developers, architects and managers decide whether to implement them or to locate and use their service implementations.
Like Services, Interfaces in the Registry must be associated with a WSDL that the Registry can locate. Note that not all WSDLs need define every aspect of a Web Service down to a live implementation and invocation port. Frequently, defining only an abstract interface (portType) can be useful. Developers can then import this definition for testing and comparing a variety of implementations of the same abstract service definition.
The Details tab of the Interface Details control displays a scrollable window in which you can find: the name of the interface, a description, status information, and search Keywords associated with the record.
The Classification tab lets you view taxonomic classifications associated with this interface.
The Technical Info tab leads to a list of information such as namespaces used by the interface, a URL linked to the WSDL where the interface (portType) was found, and the operations and message types defined within.
The References tab lists other records which have declared themselves as referring to the current interface record.
The System Info tab provides properties like unique identifier keys and a the timestamps of recent changes to the record.
At anytime you can use the action drop down list box to edit, to delete, to set a Reference to or to toggle Notification of changes to the record you are viewing. Given the proper account type and permissions, clicking the Go button will launch one of these processes.