iWay Explorer provides web developers with a simple, consistent mechanism for extending the capabilities of the iWay Emulation Adapter (3270/5250). The iWay Business Services Provider (iBSP) exposes functionality as iWay Business Services (also known as web services). It serves as a gateway to heterogeneous back-end applications and databases.

A web service is a self-contained, modularized function that you can publish and access across a network using open standards. It is the implementation of an interface by a component and is an executable entity. For the caller or sender, a web service can be considered a black box that may require input and that delivers a result. Web services integrate within an enterprise as well as across enterprises on any communication technology stack, whether asynchronous or synchronous, in any format.