This abstract class defines provider policy interface. The provider policy sets the conditions in which some service provider is capable to operate in. It is defining context, through which these (possibly remote) services may be contacted and used. The actual properties may include transport layer settings, like predefined Internet Access Point (IAP) ID. In addition, provider policy may declare, that certain service should only be contacted using certain identity provider (in ID-WSF). This can be achieved by mapping certain list of IDP IDs to a provider policy. Provider Policies are WSF wide settings, which are stored in WSF databases, and thus they are shared with all the actual Web Service Consumers (WSCs) accessing same services.

Example structure of ProviderPolicy XML fragment: