{{tag>Index Glossary Service Intelligent_Business_Object REST SOAP email}}
===== Service =====

A service is a more formal and comprehensive way of communicating than a [[glossary:notification|notification]]. A party requesting a service from another party must first identify itself to the other party, and can expect a meaningful reply back. For example, requesting an order status for a given order number from an order management system.

**//[[glossary:aware_im]]//** allows defining services for [[glossary:intelligent_business_object|intelligent business objects]] and using these services in a [[glossary:business_space|business space]]. For example, sending payment details to a payment processing system for completion of the payment. [[glossary:discovering_services|Service discovery]] is a feature that helps [[glossary:configurator|the configurator]] in defining services for objects communicating via a [[glossary:communication_channel|standard channel]].

Since a [[glossary:business_space|business space]] is an [[glossary:intelligent_business_object|intelligent business object]], the [[glossary:configurator|configurator]] can define services that the business space provides to other software systems via standard or custom [[glossary:communication_channel|channels]].