The Web Services Interoperability Organization (WS-I) on Tuesday announced availability of the WS-I Basic Profile Working Draft, which features specifications and guidelines for developing interoperable Web services.
The Basic Profile consists of implementation guidelines recommending how a set of core Web services specifications, including SOAP 1.1, WSDL 1.1, UDDI 2.0, XML 1.0, and XML Schema, are to be used for developing interoperable Web services.
The WS-I Basic Profile Working Group is seeking public feedback on the draft, with plans to release a final version in early 2003.
“The Basic Profile is the first deliverable from the WS-I and it’s essentially a set of guidelines for people building Web services applications to follow to make their applications interoperable,” said Steven VanRoekel, director of Web services marketing at Microsoft, in Redmond, Wash., and a member of the WS-I marketing committee.
WS-I is looking to follow up on work being done at standards bodies such as OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards) and W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) and bring Web services interoperability to fruition, VanRoekel said. “We’re looking to take work from standards bodies downstream,” he said. “We coalesce [standards] into a way to build applications that are interoperable.”
Component technologies are found within the scope of the Basic Profile for messaging, description, discovery, and security. Messaging is defined as the exchange of Web protocol elements, usually over a network, while description involves the enumeration of messages associated with a Web service and implementation details. Discovery includes metadata that enables advertisement of a Web service’s capabilities, while security is intended to provide integrity, privacy, authentication, and authorization.
The security element of the profile describes Secure HTTP, for example, but not the proposed WS-Security standard from OASIS, VanRoekel said. “We’re just not there yet. You have to solve the foundational issues first,” said VanRoekel.
In addition to the Basic Profile, WS-I by the end of the year plans to release early versions of testing tools, use cases and usage scenarios, and sample applications pertaining to Web services and the Basic Profile.
WS-I was formed in February to promote consistent and reliable interoperability among Web services across platforms, according to WS-I. Among members are IBM Corp., Microsoft Corp., and BEA Systems Inc. Sun Microsystems Inc. last week announced intentions to join the organization.
The Basic Profile can be found at the WS-I Web site at http://www.ws-i.org.