What is a BOD Specific WSDL? A BOD Specific WSDL is a version of the STAR Web Services Transport specification that expects to send and receive only a specific type of BOD in its transaction life cycle. If it receives anything other than what it expects, it will send back a SOAP Fault to indicate that the wrong payload was sent. According to Russell Butek from IBM, "WSDL is the Web Services Description Language. Its charter is to describe an interface to a service as completely as possible. When you use xsd:any, you deviate from this intent of the WSDL". [Butek2005] In other words, a Generic transport does not fully describe a web service; it leaves key information about the payload out. This has the advantage of allowing the transport to remain generic but shifts the determination of the content and what to do with the content received to another portion of the system.

A BOD Specific WSDL will fully describe all aspects of the Web Service's capabilities, including the type of payload that can be received and the expected responses. BOD specific WSDL is considered to be a strongly typed WSDL. More information in regards to strongly typed and loosely typed WSDL definitions can be found in the IBM Developerworks article, "Loosely typed versus strongly typed Web Services" by Andre Tost.