Message Exchange Patterns (MEP) in Web services


Message Exchange Patterns


Message Exchange Pattern describes the pattern or protocol about how the communication between producer and consumer has to happen.

We have mainly 3 Message Exchange Patterns as listed below


1. Synchronous Request-Response

2. Asynchronous Request-Response

3. Fire and Forget or One way

Synchronous Request-Response

In this case, consumer sends the request to the provider and consumer waits for the response.

Consumer cannot proceed further until it receives response.

Synchronous Request Response

Asynchronous Request-Response

In this case, consumer sends the request to the provider and it won’t wait for the response.

Once the consumer makes a request, it continues its further execution.

There will be some response listener to receive the response when the provider returns the response.

Asynchronous Request Response

Fire and Forget or One way

In this case, consumer sends a request and it will not wait for the response.

It will not have any response listener too.

Consumer will just make a request to the service and continues its execution.

Fire and Forget

About the Author

Founder of javainsimpleway.com
I love Java and open source technologies and very much passionate about software development.
I like to share my knowledge with others especially on technology 🙂
I have given all the examples as simple as possible to understand for the beginners.
All the code posted on my blog is developed,compiled and tested in my development environment.
If you find any mistakes or bugs, Please drop an email to kb.knowledge.sharing@gmail.com

Connect with me on Facebook for more updates

Share this article on