CENTRALIZED MANAGEMENT OF WEBSERVICE RESOURCES IN AN ENTERPRISE

A single centralized metadata repository for an entire enterprise can maintain the metadata pertaining to various different web service applications on application servers of heterogeneous types within the enterprise. The metadata items stored in the centralized repository all can be stored in a same canonical format that can be expected and understood by all metadata accessors. The metadata maintained within the central repository can be given a life span that is linked with the life span of the web service application to which that metadata pertains. When a web service application is deployed on an application server, metadata pertaining to that webservice can be pushed automatically to the central repository for storage. When such a web service application is undeployed from an application server, the metadata pertaining to that webservice can be removed automatically from the central repository so as not to waste storage space.