JBI is a java based standard to build integrations systems by using plug-in components which interoperates through mediated normalized message exchanges.
The message exchange model is based on the web services description language (WSDL).

The figure at the top shows a high level concept of JBI of the plug-in framework. The JBI environment provides interfaces to be used by plug-in components, while the components provides interfaces used by the JBI environment. Components do not interact with each other directly. Instead, as shown in the bottom figure, JBI acts as an intermediary to route messages between components. This separation is the key to decoupling between service providers and consumers, which is one of the goal of service oriented architectures. In addition, it provides a key point for message processing and monitoring.

In this WSDL-based, service-oriented model, JBI plug-in components are responsible for providing and consuming services. By providing a service, a component is making available a function or functions that can be consumed by other components (or even itself). Such functions are modeled as WSDL 2.0 operations, which involve the exchange of one or more messages. A set of four WSDL-defined, basic message exchange patterns (MEPs) crisply defines the sequence of messages allowed during execution of an operation. This shared understanding, between consumer and provider components, of the message exchange pattern is the foundation of interoperability of such components in JBI.

The services provided by components (if any) are described to JBI by the component, using WSDL 1.1 or 2.0. This provides an abstract, technology-neutral model of services using XML-based message exchanges. WSDL also provides a mechanism for declaring additional service metadata of interest to service consumers and JBI itself. Components can query JBI for the for the WSDL describing available services.