16. The system of claim 11 , wherein processing said first service metadata artifact entity to generate said processed service metadata artifact entity comprises removing types elements from said first service metadata artifact entity.
11. A system comprising: one or more microprocessors; a metadata manager operating on said one or more microprocessors which receives a source artifact from a process , wherein the source artifact is one of a Web Service Definition Language (WSDL) format file, a Business Process Execution Language (BPEL) format file, an XML Schema Definition (XSD) format file, and an Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformation (XLST) format file; an introspector which introspects said source artifact to identify a plurality of service metadata artifact entities based on a model of the format of said source artifact; a metadata writer which processes a first service metadata artifact entity of said plurality of service metadata artifact entities to generate a processed service metadata artifact entity wherein said processing includes canonicalizing said first service metadata artifact entity, and wherein said processed service metadata artifact entity is not required to be schema-valid; a service metadata repository client component of a service metadata repository which, applies a hashing function to said processed service metadata artifact entity to generate a fingerprint of said processed service metadata artifact entity, searches said service metadata repository, using said fingerprint of said processed service metadata artifact entity, to identify a preexisting service metadata asset having a fingerprint attribute matching said fingerprint of said processed service metadata artifact entity, if the fingerprint of said processed service metadata artifact entity matches a fingerprint attribute of a preexisting service metadata asset in said service metadata repository, returns to said process a service metadata repository reference to said matching preexisting service metadata asset, and if the fingerprint of said processed service metadata artifact entity does not match a fingerprint attribute of a preexisting service metadata asset in the service metadata repository, stores said first service metadata artifact entity in said service metadata repository as a new service metadata asset, stores said fingerprint of said processed service metadata artifact entity as an attribute of said new service metadata asset, and returns to said process a service metadata repository reference to said new service metadata asset.