Automatic creation of endpoint definition documents for different environments

A method for operating the web service registry comprises the steps of detecting the creation of a first endpoint definition document for a specific web service, the first endpoint definition document defining address data for the specific web service in one environment (e.g. production, development or test environment), accessing data defining the different environments within the service registry, creating one or more additional endpoint definition documents for the specific web service from the first endpoint definition document and the accessed data, and storing the or each additional endpoint definition document in the service registry, preferably with an environment specific suffix