Client applications need to understand a web service before accessing it. This requires the web service to be described in a standard format so that it can be used by different business applications. WSDL 1.1 is a W3C specification that provides the language for describing web services. The latest version of WSDL is available at the URL displayed on the screen.

WSDL defines various components, such as operations, data types, and protocols that can be reused to describe web services in a WSDL document. A WSDL document specifies the location of a web service and the operations the web service exposes. The document represents the external interface of a web service.