The key functions for a Group management service are:

• Support creating, reading, updating and deleting one or more group
• Support querying for groups of a certain type or criteria

Additionally such a service should also support queries as to the types of Group it supports.

The Group service may be implemented using the Enterprise Services specification, specifically:

• Data Representation the Group and Groups UML static structure models from the IMS Enterprise Services specification Group Information Model document should be used to represent Group instances, and Groups as collections, respectively. Where such data is exchanged using XML, the XML schema binding for these classes defined by IMS should be used.
• Interface The Group Management and Groups Management UML Interface models from the IMS Enterprise Services specificationGroup Information Model document should be used for defining APIs to support a Group service.
• Service The IMS Enterprise Services Web Service bindings for Group Management and Groups Management should be used to implement a Group service as a Web Service using WSDL and SOAP