Technology Reports

Web Services Interoperability Organization (WS-I)

Contents

Overview
Principal References
Articles, Papers, News, Tools

Overview
[February 07, 2002] IBM and Microsoft, together with an additional fifty-three(+) industry leaders,
have formed a new Web Services Interoperability Organization "committed to promoting
interoperability among Web services based on common, industry-accepted definitions and related
XML standards support. WS-I brings the work of multiple standards development organizations
together for the purpose of providing clarity and conformance around Web Services." WS-I
working groups will be chartered to produce specific sets of deliverables such as testing tools and
sample Web services. These deliverables will be targeted at providing resources to assist Web
services developers "to create interoperable Web services, and to verify that their results are
compliant with both industry standards and WS-I recommended guidelines." Key deliverables
include (1) Profiles, which identify version-specific sets of Web services specifications that
interoperate to support specific types of solutions; (2) Sample Implementations exposing
interoperability issues; (3) Implementation Guidelines with implementation scenarios, sample
solutions, and test cases illustrating compliance verification; (4) A 'Sniffer' tool to monitor and log
interactions with a Web service; (5) An 'Analyzer' conformance testing tool which processes
sniffer logs to verify that the Web service implementation is error-free. WS-I is open to any
organization supporting the goal of interoperable Web services. See the news item.
[August 18, 2003] WS-I Releases Basic Profile 1.0a Final Specification for Interoperable Web
Services. The Web Services-Interoperability Organization has announced the publication of a
final specification for the WS-I Basic Profile Version 1.0a, accompanied by statements of support
from more than twenty-five WS-I member companies. The Basic Profile formally approved by the
WS-I member community "consists of implementation guidelines on how core Web services
specifications should be used together to develop interoperable Web services. The nonproprietary Web services specifications covered by the Basic Profile include SOAP 1.1, WSDL
1.1, UDDI 2.0, XML 1.0, and W3C XML Schema." The profile identifies and resolves "more than
200 interoperability issues" associated with the use of core Web services specifications
referenced in the document. "WS-I is currently developing interoperability guidelines for SOAP
with Attachments, and for the Basic Security Profile. These efforts will extend the functionality
provided by the Basic Profile and will reference existing specifications." The Microsoft Prescriptive

Architecture Group (PAG) has released a 133-page document Building Interoperable Web
Services which surveys the contents of the Basic Profile and offers a "definitive guide on how to
build and consume WS-I Basic Profile compliant Web services with Visual Studio .NET and the
.NET Framework."
"WS-I is an open, industry organization chartered to promote Web services interoperability across
platforms, operating systems, and programming languages. The organization works across the
industry and standards organizations to respond to customer needs by providing guidance, best
practices, and resources for developing Web services solutions." [Website home page 2002-0207]
Overview: "The technology industry's rapidly growing interest in XML-based Web services -which allow people to access and integrate information from throughout the Web, seamlessly and
securely -- got a boost today with the announcement that Microsoft, IBM and other leading
technology companies have formed a cross-industry initiative, the Web Services Interoperability
(WS-I) Organization. The focus of the WS-I -- whose founders also include Accenture, BEA
Systems Inc., Fujitsu Ltd., Hewlett-Packard Co., Intel Corp., Oracle Corp. and SAP AG, -- is to
promote a key technology for what Microsoft has called the next generation of the Internet... The
organization is dedicated to two key goals. First, WS-I wants to provide implementation guidance
and education to accelerate customer deployments. Second, it will articulate and promote a
common industry vision for Web-services interoperability to ease customer decision making, to
grow market adoption of Web services and to ensure the continued evolution of Web services
technologies... [Testing:] Part of what's driven Web services until now has been a growing
baseline of Web-services standards, including SOAP 1.1, XML Schema, WSDL 1.1 and UDDI.
The WS-I will encourage a set of best practices around these standards. It will also deliver a set
of compliance tools that customers can use to test their baseline implementations of the
standards. The tests will be voluntary, self-administered and aimed at discovering errors in
implementation of the specifications so they can be corrected. We want to make it easier for
customers to improve the interoperability of their infrastructure and applications... [Profiles:] WS-I
will aggregate collections of key Web services standards into meaningful groups that are easier
for customers to work with. It will also promote the evolutionary adoption of key standards, and
evolve the scope and definition of profiles as required by market needs and the maturity of
underlying standards. Web services, and the market for them, must grow and evolve together.
Web-services profiles will help that happen... [Roadmap: The "Web Services Framework"
document published by IBM and Microsoft] will serve as the foundation for the new roadmap, an
evolving document that will identify functional areas and capabilities to be addressed by future
Web services specifications. The roadmap will guide implementers and customers so that their
work can remain compatible with the specifications as they are developed." [from the interview
with Dan'l Lewin 2002-02-06]
Initiative rationale: "SOAP 1.2, WSDL 1.1, and UDDI 2.0 are the latest specifications that are used
to describe, publish, enable discovery, and invoke Web Services [but they are only] the beginning
of the design and creation of specifications and standards to support the full Web services vision.
For example, additional work is necessary for message extensibility, binary attachments, routing,
correlation, guaranteed message exchange, signatures, encryption, transactions, process flow,

inspection, and discovery... even though the industry may have the best intentions of ensuring
interoperability on a specification by specification basis, a CIO, purchaser or other user of a Web
service product (be it a tool, runtime, or web service itself) would find it very difficult to match
several pieces of software necessary to complete a task or build a solution. The Web Services
Interoperability Organization (WS-I) addresses this need through the concept of 'Profiles'..."
"One of the challenges to achieving the interoperability promise of Web services is that the
specifications for the first generation of Web services: Extensible Markup Language (XML),
Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP), Web Service Description Language (WSDL), and
Universal Description, Discovery and Integration (UDDI), currently are overseen by a number of
independent standards bodies making coordination of the various specifications difficult.
Additionally, use of the same specifications does not always ensure that the resulting Web
services will interoperate with Web services created on other platforms or with different
programming languages. As the number and variety of specifications increases to match new and
existing needs this problem only increases. To truly realize the promise of interoperability it is
imperative that industry leadership in regards to definition, implementation, and testing of Web
services be brought forward. The Web Services Interoperability Organization (WS-I), founded by
Microsoft, International Business Machines (IBM) and other leaders in the software and
technology industries, is an organization committed to promoting interoperability among Web
services based on common, industry-accepted definitions and related XML standards support.
WS-I will provide the guidance, tools, and test materials necessary to ensure that Web services
created using industry standards will interoperate with one another -- across different platforms,
applications, and programming languages. By working with industry leaders and standards
bodies, WS-I will help advance Web services in a structured, coherent fashion..." [from the MS
document "Web Services: Interoperability Across Platforms, Applications, and Programming
Languages."
A WS-I Profile is "a named group of Web services specifications at specific version levels, along
with conventions about how they work together. WS-I will develop a core collection of profiles that
support interoperability for general purpose Web services functionality. Profiles make it easier to
discuss Web services interoperability at a level of granularity that makes sense for developers,
users, and executives making investment decisions about Web services and Web services
products. WS-I focuses on compatibility at both the individual specification and at the Profile level.
To be a useful concept and avoid confusion, the number of Profiles should remain relatively small.
At the same time, too few profiles would require some Web services products to be forced to add
unneeded features simply to conform to some Profile and assert interoperability. It will be an
ongoing task of WS-I to design and update profiles that reflect real Web services usage in the
industry... The first profile proposed is WS-I Basic (XML Schema 1.0, SOAP 1.1, WSDL 1.1, UDDI
1.0)... The development of additional or updated WS-I Profiles depends on the continued
evolution and maturity of Web services specifications and standards. Each of the areas listed in
the beginning of this paper is a candidate for additional Profile work as specifications are
developed. Additional work in message extensibility, binary attachments, routing, correlation,
guaranteed message exchange, signatures, encryption, transactions, process flow, inspection,
and discovery is expected."

WS-I Test Resources

[July 29, 2003] "Using the WS-I Test Tools." By Yasser Shohoud (Microsoft). July 24, 2003. 18
minutes. Tutorial prepared as an MSDN TV Episode; the presentations is played using the
Microsoft Windows Media Player. Summary: "The Web Services Interoperability organization
(WS-I) has published a draft version of the Basic Profile Test Tools. Yasser Shohoud shows how
to use these tools to test your Web service for WS-I Basic Profile conformance." Details: A Beta
Release of the WS-I Testing Tools was issued in April 2003 and is available in C# and Java. The
WS-I testing tools are designed to help developers determine whether their Web services are
conformant with Profile Guidelines. The WS-I Testing Working Group also published draft [June
26, 2003] versions of the WS-I Monitor Tool Functional Specification and WS-I Analyzer Tool
Functional Specification. The WS-I Monitor Tool specification edited by Scott Seely (Microsoft)
documents the message capture and logging tool. "This tool captures messages and stores them
for later analysis. The tool itself will have to capture messages traveling over different protocols
and transports. The first version of this tool will focus on being able to accurately capture HTTP
based SOAP messages. Also, while many interception techniques are available, this
implementation uses a man in the middle approach to intercept and record messages... The
Monitor has two distinct sets of functionality: (1) It is responsible for sending messages on to
some other endpoint that is capable of accepting the traffic while preserving the integrity of
communication between the two endpoints. (2) It is responsible for recording the messages that
flow through it to a log file. One can think of these two pieces as an interceptor and a logger. For
this first version of the Monitor, the interceptor and logger functionality will exist in the same
application. The working group recognizes that we may later desire to separate the interceptor
and the logger into two, standalone entities. This design discusses how one would go about
structuring an application today that should be able to be broken into separate pieces in future
versions..." The WS-I Analyzer Tool specification edited by Peter Brittenham (IBM) documents
"the design for Version 1.0 of the analyzer tool, which will be used for conformance testing of WSI profiles. The purpose of the Analyzer tool is to validate the messages that were sent to and from
a Web service. The analyzer is also responsible for verifying the description of the Web service.
This includes the WSDL document that describes the Web service, and the XML schema files
that describe the data types used in the WSDL service definition. The analyzer tool has a defined
set of input files, all of which are used to verify conformance to a profile definition: Analyzer
configuration file; Test assertion definition file; Message log file; WSDL for the Web service. The
analyzer configuration file and test assertion definition file are described in greater detail in the
subsequent sections of the document; the message log file contains the list of messages that
were captured by the monitor tool..." See also the WS-I Basic Profile Version 1.0 (Working Group
Approval Draft 2003/05/20) and the

WS-I Testing Working Group Charter.

Monitoring tools: 'Sniffer' will be provided to collect Web service message traces
and generate a log for subsequent service message traces

Analysis tools: 'Analyzer' will examine traces for correctness and use of
recommended practices

Output of analysis tools is used as a basis for WS-I compliance claims

Tools are intended for use by any Web service developer

Source code will be available

From the announcement:

Implementation Tools and Guidance: "To assist in ensuring the interoperability of Web services,
WS-I will initially create a suite of tools and materials for testing implementation and conformance
with "basic level" Web services standards: XML, SOAP, WSDL and UDDI. These testing
capabilities are important so customers can ensure that their implementations comply with the
best-practices use of these Web services specifications. Tests will be self administered and
aimed at uncovering unconventional usage or errors in specification implementations, thus
improving interoperability between applications and across platforms.
Road Map for Web Services: "As Web services mature and gain mainstream momentum, the
need will arise for additional capabilities that are not fully addressed in the current Web services
standards. To meet these needs, WS-I will publish an architectural road map for identifying
functional areas and capabilities that need to be addressed in future Web services specifications.
As new specifications are created and adopted by multiple standards organizations to enhance
current Web service capabilities, WS-I will provide a forum to ensure testing materials support the
evolving set of requirements and their interdependencies."
WS-I membership and governance
Details as portrayed through documents in a WS-I 'membership information' packet distributed via
email 2002-02-18, by WS-I Coordinator (Rich Crithfield). See the official contact address for
current details on WS-I membership and organizational process.

WS-I Bylaws. 19 pages.

WS-I Membership Agreement. 9 pages.
WS-I IPR Agreement. 28 pages.
WS-I Membership Invitation. 1 page.
Member Info/Contact. 1 page.
New Member Checklist. 2 pages.
Original 2002-02-18 distribution

WS-I Working Group Charters

Charters 2002-06:

WSBasic Profile WG Charter. Scope of work and deliverables for the WS-I
WSBasic Profile Working Group. [cache]

WSBasic Sample Apps WG Charter. Scope of work and deliverables for the WS-I
WSBasic Sample Applications and Scenarios Working Group. [cache]

Testing WG Charter. Scope of work and deliverables for the WS-Testing Working
Group. [cache]

WS-I Board Of Directors

[Website listing 2002-07-18]

President and Chairman: Tom Glover - IBM

Secretary: Christopher Kurt - Microsoft
Treasurer: Jim Hughes - Hewlett-Packard
Board Member: Ed Cobb - BEA Systems
Board Member: Mike De Nicola - Fujitsu
Board Member: Don Deutsch - Oracle
Board Member: Franz-Josef Fritz - SAP AG
Board Member: Norbert Mikula - Intel
Board Member: Tony Roby - Accenture

WS-I Members
The WS-I members include some 107 companies [2002-07-18 listing]: 101communications,
Accenture, Actional, Agentis Software, Akamai Technologies, Altova, Approva, Ascential
Software, AT&T, Attachmate, Autodesk, Avinon, Bang Networks, BEA Systems, Blue Titan,
Borland, Bowstreet, Business Objects, Cape Clear, CIGNA, CommerceQuest, ContentGuard,
Corechange, Corel, Corillian, Cotagesoft, Cyclone Commerce, Daimler Chrysler, DealEasy,
Discrete Objects, E2open, EDS, Epicentric, Epicor, ESRI, FileNET, Flamenco Networks, Forum
Systems, Fox Island Partners, Fujitsu, FullTilt, Geac Computer Corporation, GrandCentral,
Groove Networks, Hewlett-Packard, HighJump Software, Hitachi, Hummingbird Limited, I/O
Software, IBM Corporation, Intel, Iona, iWay Software, JamCracker, KANA, Kinzan, Loudcloud,
Mediapps, Mercator, Metapa, Micro Focus, Microsoft, Mogul Technology, NEON Systems,
Netegrity, Onyx, Oracle Corporation, Parasoft, Partnerware, Pivotal, Plumtree, Portera, POSC,
Procter & Gamble, Promon IP, Quovadx, Qwest, Rational Software, Reactivity, RealNames, Reed
Elsevier, Reuters, Sabre, SAP AG, SAS, SeguriDATA, SilverStream Software, Softronic, Software
AG, Sonic Software, Suntail, Swingtide, Sybase, Systinet, Talking Blocks, Tata Consultancy
Services, TIBCO, Tryllian, Unisys, United Airlines, United Kingdom Office of e-Envoy, Verisign,
Versata, Vinsurance, Vitria, webMethods, and WRQ
[June 27, 2002] WS-I as a "standards organization"? IBM's Bob Sutor says not, according to a
Tech Update from Eric Knorr (June 27, 2002). On July 27, 2002, IBM, Microsoft, and VeriSign
announced their intention to submit the "Web Services Security Specification (WS-Security)" to
OASIS and to create an OASIS Technical Committee for development of this specification. From
Knorr's report: "According to Sutor, another message sent by WS-Security's choice of OASIS was
to quell speculation once and for all that the Web Services Interoperability (WS-I) organization will
go beyond its current charter -- fostering Web services compatibility across tools and platforms -to becoming a standards organization itself. 'The WS-I is about interoperability,' he says. 'There's
been confusion generated -- I don't know why -- about whether it's doing standards or not, but
we've always said it's not [emph added]. They've been very busy working on the interoperability of
the basic things. I would hope and expect that at a later date they start looking at WS-Security'..."
See details of the WS-Security submission to OASIS in "IBM, Microsoft and VeriSign Submit WS-

Security Specification to OASIS for Standardization. Advanced Web Services Security

Specification Broadly Supported by Industry." The report also highlights the significance of Sun's
(stated) commitment to the WS-Security specification within the OASIS context: "Just as
important as the players involved, however, is the decision by Microsoft, IBM, and VeriSign to
ensure WS-Security will be royalty-free. Explicitly, no party will be able to collect licensing fees
from the use of WS-Security, a stipulation that Smith told me was a prerequisite for Sun's
participation. He believes the proposed royalty-free license is 'sufficient in all regards. Had they
not done that, we would not have participated'..."

Principal References

WS-I web site

"WS-I Board of Directors Releases Three WS-I Approval Draft Profiles for
Review."

Basic Security Profile Version 1.0. May 12, 2004. See the news story.

WS-I Security Scenarios. WS-I Basic Security Profile Working Group. Working
Group Draft. Version 0.15. February 14, 2004. 52 pages. See the news story.

"Basic Profile Version 1.0." Board Approval Draft. Date: 2003/03/28. Edited by
Keith Ballinger (Microsoft), David Ehnebuske (IBM), Martin Gudgin (Microsoft), Mark
Nottingham (BEA Systems), and Prasad Yendluri (webMethods). Revision URL:
http://www.ws-i.org/Profiles/Basic/2003-03/BasicProfile-1.0-BdAD.html.

Basic Profile Version 1.0 Working Group Draft. 2002-10-18. Also in PDF format.

Announcement 2003-04-01: "WS-I Charters Basic Security Profile Working

Group. Industry Organization Tackles Interoperability Issues with Web Services Security."

"IBM and Microsoft Announce Web Services Interoperability Organization (WSI)." News item 2002-02-07.

"Sample Application Supply Chain Management Architecture." [cache]

"Supply Chain Management Use Case Model." [cache]

"WS-I Usage Scenarios." [cache]

"WS-I Overview." Version 1.3. October 03, 2002. [cache 2002-10-19]

Announcement 2002-02-06: "Industry Leaders Align Around Web Services

Interoperability. Accenture, BEA Systems, Fujitsu, HP, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Oracle and
SAP Form Web Services Interoperability Organization (WS-I) to Speed Development and
Deployment of Web Services. Provide Support and Road Map for Developers and
Customers."

Announcement from IBM. February 07, 2002. "Industry Leaders Align Around
Web Services Interoperability."

WS-I FAQ document

WS-I Profiles. 2 pages. "Profiles are a mechanism used to group sets of Web
service specifications to provide specific functionality. They provide the context for WS-I
technical activities. This document introduces the concept of Web service profiles." Also
in Word/.DOC format.

WS-I overview

WS-I news and events


WS-I members

WS-I documentation

WS-I implementation tools

"Web Services: Interoperability Across Platforms, Applications, and Programming

Languages." From Microsoft. February 6, 2002.

"Q&A: Web Services Interoperability Organization to Promote Interoperability."

From Microsoft PressPass and Dan'l Lewin, Microsoft Vice President. February 6, 2002.

Web Services Interoperability (WS-I) Organization. References from Microsoft

web site.

"Web Services Framework." WS-I will "adopt and publish a roadmap expanding
upon the one defined in the 'Web Services Framework' whitepaper, jointly submitted by
IBM and Microsoft to the W3C in April 2001." [cache]

Contact: info@ws-i.org

Articles, Papers, News, Tools

[December 11, 2006] "WS-I Publishes New Profiles and Usage Scenarios for
Public Review. Working Group Drafts of Basic Profile 1.2, Basic Security Profile 1.1 and
Reliable Secure Profile 1.0 Usage Scenarios Now Available." The Web Services
Interoperability Organization (WS-I) today announced the publication of three new
Working Group Drafts: the Basic Profile 1.2, Basic Security Profile 1.1 and the Reliable
Secure Profile 1.0 Usage Scenarios. Advancement of these documents to Working Group
Draft status is an invitation to the Web services community to provide technical feedback.
The Basic Profile 1.2 is a revision of the Basic Profile 1.1, incorporating errata to date and
includes requirements related to the serialization of envelopes and their representation in
messages from the Simple SOAP Binding Profile 1.0. The WS-I Basic Profile 1.2 is
primarily constructed using WS-Addressing which defines a standard mechanism for
identifying and exchanging Web services messages between multiple endpoints. The
newly chartered Reliable Secure Profile Working Group has released a Working Group
Draft of the Reliable Secure Profile 1.0 Usage Scenarios for public review. The Reliable
Secure Profile 1.0 will deliver interoperability guidance to Web services architects and
developers to securely deliver messages reliably between distributed applications in the
presence of software component, system, or network failures. The published Usage
Scenarios illustrate the use of the Reliable Secure Profile 1.0 and how it can be applied
or composed with other profiles and specifications across a wide range of Web services
applications (e.g., mobile, devices, intermediaries, enterprise applications, etc.). The
Usage Scenarios focus on the specific scenarios that exhibit fundamental interoperability
issues and that require implementation guidance. In concert with the current work to
finalize the Basic Security Profile 1.0, to be released as Final Material in the first quarter,
the Basic Security Profile Working Group has released a Working Group Draft of the
Basic Security Profile 1.1. The Basic Security Profile 1.1 is a revision of the Basic
Security Profile 1.0 and incorporates any errata to date and profiles WS-Security 1.1 and
the WS-Security 1.1 token profiles, including Username, X.509, REL, Kerberos, and
SAML..."


[July 14, 2006] WS-I Basic Security Profile Enhanced Logging Specification
Requirements. Edited by Ram Poornalingam (Microsoft Corporation). Contributors: Craig
Chaney (IBM) and Keith Stobie (Microsoft). Produced by members of the Web ServicesInteroperability Organization (WS-I). Document Status: Working Group Draft. Version:
1.0. Publication date: May 08, 2006. 8 pages. [This specification defines the enhanced
logging facilities used by the WS-I Test Tools to support the Basic Security Profile.]
"Verifying Basic Security Profile conformance requires SOAP stack instrumentation. This
specification addresses why instrumentation is necessary and how it can be achieved.
The document assumes that the reader understands the usage of the Interoperability
testing tools version 2.0. [The WS-I Testing Tools are designed to help developers
determine whether their Web services are conformant with WS-I profile guidelines.]
Complete BSP verification of encrypted SOAP message emitted by the application is not
possible. The reason being, Basic Profile verification, a requirement of the BSP, of
encrypted messages is not possible. To achieve BP verification, the unencrypted form of
the message is necessary. The profile conformance coverage that can be achieved,
without adhering to this specification, is only at the surface level..."

[May 02, 2006] "Reliable-messaging 'Profile' Passes." By Martin LaMonica. From

CNET News.com (May 02, 2006). "The Web Services-Interoperability organization (WS-I)
on Monday said it will create guidelines meant to ensure that standards-based reliablemessaging software from different vendors will work together. The WS-I publishes
'profiles' that include directions on how to write software from published Web services
standards, a series of XML-based protocols for sharing data between applications. The
organization will establish a working group to write a reliable-messaging profile that will
be based on two specifications: OASIS WS-ReliableMessaging 1.1 and OASIS WSSecure Conversations..."

[May 01, 2006] "WS-I Announces New Profile Work for 2006. Web Services
Interoperability Organization Initiates Work on Three New Profiles: Basic Profile 1.2,
Basic Profile 2.0 and Reliable Secure Profile 1.0." - "The Web Services Interoperability
Organization (WS-I) today announced that the WS-I Board of Directors has approved two
new working group charters, which will result in the development of three new WS-I
profiles in 2006: the Basic Profile 1.2, Basic Profile 2.0 and the Reliable Secure Profile
1.0. WS I is a global industry organization that promotes consistent and reliable
interoperability among Web services across platforms, applications and programming
languages. More information about WS-I can be found at www.ws-i.org. The first charter,
a revision to the existing WS-I Basic Profile Working Group charter, will result in the
development the Basic Profile 1.2 and the Basic Profile 2.0. The Basic Profile 1.2 will
incorporate asynchronous messaging and will also consider SOAP 1.1 with Message
Transmission Optimization Mechanism (MTOM) and XML-binary Optimized Packaging
(XOP). The Basic Profile 2.0 will build on the Basic Profile 1.2 and will be based on SOAP
1.2 with MTOM and XOP. The second charter establishes a new working group, the
Reliable Secure Profile Working Group, which will deliver guidance to Web services
architects and developers concerning reliable messaging with security... The newly
chartered Reliable Secure Profile Working Group will begin developing scenarios,

requirements and profile guidance in parallel with the related standardization efforts
within the OASIS WS-Reliable Exchange Technical Committee. The working group's
primary deliverable is the WS-I Reliable Secure Profile (RSP) 1.0 which will provide
guidance to architects and developers concerning reliable messaging with security. RSP
1.0 will be based upon the following specifications: (1) OASIS WS-ReliableMessaging 1.1
and (2) OASIS WS-SecureConversation 1.3. The scenarios and requirements work will
consider interoperability issues identified across a wide range of Web services
applications (e.g., mobile, devices, intermediaries, enterprise applications, etc.). A Chair
for the Reliable Secure Profile Working Group will be named shortly. The Basic Profile 1.2
and 2.0, and the Reliable Secure Profile 1.0, when practical, will cleanly compose with
other WS-I profiles delivered to date..."

[April 21, 2006] "WS-I Board of Directors Appoints SAP's Michael Bechauf
Chairman at Spring Community Meeting Profile Proposals to Tackle Reliable
Asynchronous Messaging, Addressing, Secure Conversations and SOAP 1.2
Considered." - "The Web Services Interoperability Organization (WS-I) today announced
that the WS-I Board of Directors, by unanimous vote, appointed Michael Bechauf
Chairman of the Board. Bechauf, Vice President of Industry Standards at SAP, succeeds
Tom Glover, Senior Program Manager of Web Services Standards for IBM's Software
Group, who has served as WS-I Chairman since the organization's inception in February,
2002. Bechauf was appointed Chairman at the Board of Directors meeting held recently
in conjunction with the WS-I Spring Community Meeting... At the recent Board meeting,
the WS-I Board of Directors, collaborating with the WS-I Requirements Gathering
Working Group, developed two draft working group charters. The first, a revision of the
WS-I Basic Profile Working Group charter, would result in WS-I's producing the Basic
Profile version 1.2, which will incorporate asynchronous messaging, and the Basic Profile
version 2.0, which will incorporate SOAP 1.2, SOAP Message Transmission Optimization
Mechanism (MTOM) and XML-binary Optimized Packaging (XOP). The second charter
would create the Reliable Secure Profile Working Group, which would deliver guidance to
developers concerning reliable messaging with security. The Board will meet on April 18
[2006] to review the final versions of the proposed working group charters. 'Since the
inception of WS-I, the organization has been focused on producing profiles that bridge
business needs and standards, so that the full value of Web services can be realized,'
said Tom Glover. 'The WS-I Basic Profile has become the foundation of Web servicesbased interoperability, and the entire industry has benefited from the effort WS-I members
put into the Profile and supporting deliverables, which help Web services developers and
architects in their work. In 2006, WS-I members are working to deliver the Basic Security
Profile, which will improve the ability to integrate clients and services where security is
required. In addition, our members are taking the first steps towards developing guidance
on interoperable asynchronous messaging, and they are looking past that to what comes
next. I'm proud to have been a part of this team for the past four years, and I'm looking
forward to seeing WS-I, with Michael Bechauf at the helm, continue to help make
interoperability a practical reality'..."


[March 24, 2006] "IBM: Proposing An Addition to WS-I Profiles." By Tony Baer.
From Computer Business Review Online (March 24, 2006). "After a somewhat stormy
birth four years ago, web services interoperability (WS-I) has become one of the success
stories in the web services standards world. Its role is devising profiles, or test cases, for
determining if web services middleware from different vendors are truly interoperable.
IBM is expected to propose the Reliable Asynchronous Messaging Profile, RAMP, at this
year's first major WS-I gathering. RAMP will consist of snippets of three recent or pending
web services standards: WS-Addressing, WS-ReliableMessaging, and WSSecureConversation. IBM developed the proposed RAMP profile in conjunction with Ford
and Chrysler, and has recently drawn backing from other customers, including Citibank.
WS-I profiles are not standards per se, but test cases that vendors accept as their
standard for testing the interoperability of their web services middleware products. To
keep the tests manageable, they do not necessarily exercise every aspect of the
technology stack. Arguably, the strength of WS-I is that it has stuck to its knitting with a
couple of very basic interoperability profiles, the Basic Profile and the Basic Security
Profile, and has therefore drawn virtually universal industry support. The weakness is that
WS-I's lowest common denominator approach has caused the organization to stay behind
the times. For instance, the Basic Profile does not even test for the latest version of UDDI,
which is supported in most current registry products. And in four years, it only has only
finalized one profile, although it is close to finishing the second..."

[March 24, 2006] "Next Steps for WS-I: Interoperable Reliable Asynchronous
Messaging." By Tom Glover (Senior Program Manager of Web Services Standards, IBM
Software Group). IBM Blog (March 23, 2006). "As we approach the next WS-I Plenary
discussion regarding how we come to consensus to get work on Reliable Asynchronous
Messaging under way is fast and furious ... which is great news. In my last post I talked
about RAMP, or the Reliable Asynchronous Messaging Profile, a draft Profile
DaimlerChrysler, Ford, and IBM have produced with contributions from many others, and
about the preparation of a draft working group charter intended to move this work into
WS-I. The draft charter prepared by Citigroup, IBM, and others went to the WS-I
Requirements WG where it was considered and amended by the WS-I membership. It's
now before the WS-I board. There's now another proposal being worked. This effort,
initiated by Microsoft, differs from the initial proposal in a couple of ways at this point, and
I say it that way because it's now before the Requirements WG as well and is being
amended. The first difference is that there are charters for two working groups in this
proposal rather than one. The second difference is that it proposes that RAMP be subdivided so that ws-addressing goes into an amended basic profile. The third difference is
that it attempts to get WS-I committed via working group charter contents to begin
working on SOAP 1.2 now. I'm comfortable adopting some of the changes in this work if it
will move us forward. Here's what I hope is in the WG charter approved at next weeks
WS-I plenary: (1) Scenarios which articulate what the profiles to be produced will
address. (2) A BP 1.2 which extends and evolves BP 1.1 to include WS-Addressing. (3) A
Basic Reliable Messaging Profile 1.0 which includes WS-ReliableMessaging and WSSecureConversation. You'll note that I advocate one working group, not two. This lets

small companies send representatives to one WG rather than two, which is a real plus for
them. It also cuts down on WS-I overhead, again a big plus..."

[May 17, 2005] Security Challenges, Threats and Countermeasures Version 1.0.
Status: Final Material. May 07, 2005. Edited by Jerry Schwarz (Oracle), Bret Hartman
(DataPower), Anthony Nadalin (IBM), Chris Kaler (Microsoft), Mark Davis (Sarvega),
Frederick Hirsch (Nokia Corporation), and K. Scott Morrison (Layer 7). Copyright (c)
2002-2005 by The Web Services-Interoperability Organization (WS-I) and Certain of its
Members. 48 pages. "The Final Material document describes several security challenges,
threats and countermeasures in building interoperable Web services, as well as usage
scenarios and solutions. It is used to define the requirements for and scope of the Basic
Security Profile. Covers: (1) Challenges: describes several security challenges, including
ensuring data integrity, data confidentiality and message uniqueness; (2) Threats:
outlines 10 threats on these challenges, such as message alteration, falsified messages,
message replay, and denial of service attacks; (3) Countermeasures: recommends how
technologies like HTTPS and OASIS Web Services Security (WS-Security): SOAP
Message Security 1.0 can be used to counter some of these threats; (4) Usage Scenarios
and Solutions: describes how these technologies can be used with the Message
Exchange Patterns (MEPs) that have been used in WS-I deliverables such as the Basic
Profile 1.0 Sample Applications..." See the announcement.

[May 17, 2005] "WS-I Promotes Security Document to Final Material Status.
'Security Challenges, Threats and Countermeasures' Approved by Membership." - "The
Web Services Interoperability Organization (WS-I) today announced the publication of its
"Security Challenges, Threats and Countermeasures" document (SCTC) as Final
Material. The Final Material designation is applied to those deliverables that have been
formally approved by the WS-I member community. Developed by the WS-I Basic
Security Profile Working Group, the SCTC identifies security challenges and threats in
building interoperable Web services and countermeasures for these risks. The document
is available for download... The WS-I Basic Security Profile Working Group has also been
at work on the Basic Security Profile (BSP), which is expected to be published as Final
Material this Summer. The BSP is an interoperability profile involving transport security,
SOAP messaging security and other security considerations implicated by the Basic
Profile. The Basic Security Profile is intended to compose with other WS-I profiles and will
reference existing specifications used to provide security, including the WS-Security 1.0
OASIS Standard, and provide clarifications and guidance designed to promote
interoperability of those specifications..." See preceding bibliographic entry.

[April 24, 2005] "WS-I Submission for the W3C Workshop on XML Schema 1.0
Specification User Experiences." By Erik Johnson (Epicor) for the Web Services
Interoperability Organization (WS-I). Version: 1.0. "The Web Services Interoperability
Organization (WS-I) herein offers a submission to the W3C Workshop on XML Schema
1.0 User Experiences. The WS-I appreciates this opportunity to contribute to the
Workshop and looks forward to working with the W3C in fostering broad adoption of the
XML Schema 1.0 Specification. Unlike other specifications relevant to web services, the

WS-I had initially felt that there were no clear ambiguities or feature pathways of the W3C
XML Schema 1.0 Specification 2nd Edition itself that merited development of a WS-I XML
Schema profile. In fact, the WS-I Basic Profile 1.0 expressly allows the use of all W3C
XML Schema 1.0 Specification constructs and types. In 2003 however, the WS-I
commissioned a Working Group to study interoperability issues with XML Schema raised
by WS-I Community members, specifically end-user organizations. The XML Schema
Work Plan Working Group (WS-I SWPWG) was then chartered to produce a
recommendation for possible further action to the WS-I Board. The WS-I SWPWG began
work in November of 2004 to study the issue claims and define how the WS-I might in
fact take action. This submission summarizes portions of the conversation and
consensus from the work of the WS-I XML Schema Work Plan Working Group... It
defeats the purpose of XML web services if developers creating or consuming services
have to understand the toolkit and platform assumptions of their counterparts. So, toolkit
support of XML Schema needs to be measured in the context of suitability to purpose.
But there are many permutations of platform stacks, programming languages, and toolkits
in use and the idea of suitability is clearly subjective. WS-I members have discussed
these issues from two viewpoints: The first is the need for guidance and clarification of
the W3C XML Schema 1.0 Specification, especially around best practices for extensibility,
versioning, and type composition (modularity). The second is the need for a testing
capability that covers XML Schema constructs found in real-world schemas (good, bad,
and ugly) rather than academic coverage of XML Schema features..." For details on the
workshop, see the news story "W3C Workshop to Address Improved Interoperability of
Schema-Aware Software." [cache]

[March 24, 2005] "WS-I Advances BSP Documents, Explores New Items." By
Alan J. Weissberger. In Daily News and Information for the Global Grid Community
(March 16, 2005). ['Alan Weissberger attended the WS-I Community Meeting, which was
held March 8-11 in Vancouver, British Columbia, and offers a report of what was covered.
Among the highlights was a representative of the Burton Group who stated that over 70
percent of its Fortune 300 clients recognize the value of WS-I deliverables and are
including them in their IT requirements.'] "The Web Services Interoperability (WS-I)
organization held its spring 2005 community meeting March 8-11 in Vancouver, British
Columbia. WS-I is the lowest common denominator organization for Web services. It
attempts to ensure interoperability of Web services standards (developed by W3C and
OASIS) by creating profiles based on those standards. Here are a few highlights of this
important WS-I meeting: [1] Board of Directors (BoD) is pursuing ISO/IEC JTC1 'Fast
Track' submission of WS-I Basic Profile (BP) 1.1 and Basic Security Profile (BSP)
documents. This would convey 'de jure' standards status on the WS-I Board approved
output documents, which is required in some foreign countries. [2] W3C is considering a
new work item to develop an XML schema profile. This is because many industry
participants complain that either schema is not specified correctly, or the schema
development tools do not work correctly (two sets of tools may not produce interoperable
code for the same Web service). WS-I is keenly interest in this activity and a draft charter
of a new XML Schema WG has been generated for BoD review. However, that review is
on hold for three months, pending W3C decision on pursuing this activity. [3] Basic

Security Profile (BSP) WG (see II. below) completed work on Security Challenges,
Threats and Countermeasures document which was approved by BoD at this meeting.
The WG also progressed the three documents that collectively comprise the BSP. They
are waiting for the OASIS WS-Security TC to complete work on Kerberos Token standard
before they begin related Kerberos profiling work. [4] Requirements WG finalized a Usage
Pattern Template, submitted by Fujitsu Software, for description of WS usage patterns.
Previous templates completed: Business Scenarios, Use Cases and Interoperability Field
Report. IBM submitted a new use case on message routing and addressing, by
illustrating the steps in processing of an invoice using Web services. This application is
quite common in enterprise IT that a Usage Pattern will be distilled from this use case..."

[December 15, 2004] "WS-I Launches Advocates Program. WS-I Broadens

Community Support with New Recognition Program. More Than 30 Companies Join WS-I
as Advocates." - "The Web Services Interoperability Organization (WS-I) today
announced the introduction of the WS-I Advocates Program, a newly launched
recognition opportunity for companies that support the work of WS-I. More than 30
companies have already joined WS-I as Advocates. Although Advocates do not attend
WS-I meetings or participate in the organization's technical working groups or
committees, they do receive several benefits. Each Advocate's name, logo and
testimonial are posted on WS-I's website. In turn, each Advocate may post a special 'WSI Advocate' logo on its website. Advocates will also receive a subscription to WS-Insider,
WS-I's informative newsletter that is published several times each year. The program is
free, and any interested company may enroll by completing a registration form... The
companies joining WS-I as Advocates, include Acucorp., Approva, AppsSwing Limited,
ASD Software, Bestning Technologies, Bluespring Software, Brixlogic, CentrPort, Chip
eServices, Dealogic, Docucorp International, EAI User Group, EpiSoftware, Eternet
S.A.C., Exocore Consulting, FAMIS Software, Fintricity, FiveSight Technologies,
gMorpher, Go Technology, GuruSoft Corporation, HCL Technologies, HTC, Infosys
Technologies, Ministry of Finance, Northrop Grumman, Oncorp Direct, Pathlore,
QuickTree, ReadiMinds, RezGateway, Softwaremaker.Net, Tata Consulting Services,
UBS, vInsurance, WebCab Components, WRQ, XempleX, XWebServices.com and
Yellow Pencil. 'The WS-I Advocates Program broadens the community of companies that
can support the important work of WS-I and receive some of the many benefits we
provide,' said Tom Glover, WS-I Chairman. 'Our organization, which includes Web
services vendors, end-user companies, and standards development organizations, is
pleased to welcome our new Advocate companies and is grateful for their support.' WS-I
is an open industry organization committed to promoting consistent and reliable
interoperability among Web services across platforms, applications and programming
languages. The organization unites a diverse community of Web services companies to
provide guidance, recommended practices and supporting resources for developing
interoperable Web services..."

[August 24, 2004] "WS-I Promotes Profiles to Final Material Status. Basic Profile
1.1, Attachments Profile 1.0 and Simple SOAP Binding Profile 1.0 Approved by WS-I
Membership. WS-I Charters Working Group to Address XML Schema." - "The Web

Services Interoperability Organization (WS-I) today announced the publication of its Basic
Profile 1.1, Attachments Profile 1.0 and Simple SOAP Binding Profile 1.0 as Final
Material. The Final Material designation is applied to those deliverables that have been
formally approved by the WS-I member community. 'WS-I understood from its members
that existing Web services attachment specifications were increasingly presenting
interoperability difficulties,' said Chris Ferris, chair of the WS-I Basic Profile Working
Group. 'The new profiles provide Web services developers with a flexible mechanism for
creating attachment-enabled applications with predictable interoperability'... Basic Profile
1.1 describes how core Web services specifications should be used together to develop
interoperable Web services. Specifically, the document consists of a set of nonproprietary
Web services specifications and clarifications, refinements, interpretations and
amplifications of them that promote interoperability. To create version 1.1, the Basic
Profile 1.0 was re-architected to relocate all binding-specific envelope serialization
requirements to its own profile; the Simple Soap Binding Profile 1.0. This new structure
enables the Basic Profile 1.1 to easily compose with any profile that specifies envelope
serialization, including the Simple SOAP Binding Profile 1.0 and the Attachments Profile
1.0. With the release of the profiles, Web services that use attachments can be tested for
WS-I conformance with a composition of Basic Profile 1.1 and Attachments Profile 1.0.
Those that do not use attachments can be tested for conformance with a composition of
Basic Profile 1.1 and Simple SOAP Binding Profile 1.0. A claim of conformance to both
the Basic Profile 1.1 and the Simple SOAP Binding Profile 1.0 will be equivalent to a
claim of conformance to the Basic Profile 1.0 plus the published errata... SOAP 1.1
defines an XML structure for transmitting messages, called the envelope. The Simple
SOAP Binding Profile mandates the use of that structure and places certain constraints
on its use. Simple SOAP Binding Profile 1.0 is derived from the Basic Profile 1.0
requirements related to the serialization of the envelope and its representation in the
message... SOAP Messages with Attachments (SwA) defines a MIME multipart/related
structure for packaging attachments with SOAP messages. This profile complements the
Basic Profile 1.1 to add support for conveying interoperable SwA-based attachments with
SOAP messages... WS-I is currently working to develop sample applications and testing
tools for use with the newly approved Basic Profile 1.1, Attachments Profile 1.0 and
Simple SOAP Binding Profile 1.0. In addition, at its recent community meeting, WS-I
chartered a new working group, called the XML Schema Work Plan Working Group, to
focus on collecting and understanding interoperability issues related to the use of XML
Schema as the means by which application data is defined with the intent of determining
the most suitable course of action for WS-I in addressing those concerns..."

[August 11, 2004] WS-I Board of Directors Releases Three WS-I Approval Draft
Profiles for Review. Board Approval Drafts have been issued for WS-I Basic Profile
Version 1.1, WS-I Simple SOAP Binding Profile Version 1.0, and WS-I Attachments
Profile Version 1.0. In the WS-I (Web Services Interoperability Organization) specification
development process, a Board Approval Draft is a draft that "has been approved for
publication by the Board of Directors, and is submitted for consideration by the
Membership, and for public comment; it is a work in progress, and should not be
considered as final; other documents may supersede this document." According to an

overview from Christopher Ferris (IBM; co-editor on two of the Approval Drafts), the
approved documents "are now before the WS-I membership for review" and are expected
to reach final approval later in August 2004. Once approved by the WS-I membership, the
documents becomes WS-I Final Material. Testing Tools and Sample Application
implementations for these profiles will enter their own approval cycles in the near future."
The WS-I Basic Profile 1.1 consists of "a set of non-proprietary Web services
specifications, along with clarifications, refinements, interpretations and amplifications of
those specifications which promote interoperability." The WS-I Simple SOAP Binding
Profile 1.0 "is derived from those Basic Profile 1.0 requirements related to the
serialization of the envelope and its representation in the message, incorporating any
errata to date. These requirements have been factored out of the Basic Profile 1.1 to
enable other Profiles to be composable with it." Attachments Profile Version 1.0 profile
"complements the WS-I Basic Profile 1.1 to add support for conveying interoperable
SOAP Messages with Attachments-based attachments with SOAP messages." The
overview provided by Ferris clarifies that WS-I "did not choose to produce multiple profiles
arbitrarily. The initial intent was to add support for SOAP with Attachments to the Basic
Profile 1.0 and to call the new profile Basic Profile 1.1. However, for a variety of reasons
this approach proved to be infeasible. The three new profiles address both the need to
address the customer requirement to provide guidance on the interoperable use of
attachments today and the need to accommodate future bindings for technologies such
as the W3C XML Protocol WG's MTOM and XOP." In essence, "the Basic Profile was rearchitected to enable the composition of profiles that supported multiple bindings such as
SOAP over HTTP, SOAP Messages with Attachments over HTTP and eventually
MTOM/XOP over HTTP. It is conceivable that there might be other bindings in the future.
The binding-specific requirements have been separated into their own profiles, each with
its own conformance claim, and the testing tools have been modified to enable
composition of the Test Assertion Documents (TAD) such that conformance to a set of
relevant profiles can be measured."

[May 18, 2004] WS-I Releases Basic Security Profile Version 1.0 Working
Group Draft. The Web Services Interoperability Organization (WS-I) has announced the
availability of a Basic Security Profile Version 1.0 Working Group Draft. Publication of the
Basic Security Profile follows a February 2004 release of WS-I Security Scenarios
Working Group Draft which defined the requirements and scope for the WS-I Basic
Security Profile. The WS-I Basic Security Profile Version 1.0 consists of "a set of nonproprietary Web services specifications, along with clarifications and amendments to
those specifications which promote interoperability. The Security Profile WD addresses
Transport Layer Security, SOAP Message Security, Username Token Profile, X.509
Certificate Token Profile, XML-Signature, XML Encryption, Algorithms, Relationship of
Basic Security Extension Profile to Basic Profile, and Attachment Security. The Profile's
Guiding Principles articulated in Section 1.1 clarify that testable statements are made
when possible, but that "such testability is not required; preferably, testing is achieved in a
non-intrusive manner (e.g., examining artifacts 'on the wire,' but due to the nature of
cryptographic security, non-intrusive testing may not be possible." Similarly, the Basic
Security Profile provides no guarantee of interoperability: "Although it is impossible to

completely guarantee the interoperability of a particular service, the Profile attempts to

increase interoperability by addressing the most common problems that implementation
experience has revealed to date." Requirements from a number of specifications are
incorporated into the Profile by reference, as enumerated in Appendix I: HTTP over TLS;
Web Services Security: SOAP Message Security; Web Services Security: Username
Token Profile; Web Services Security: X.509 Token Profile; XML-Signature Syntax and
Processing; Web Services Security: SOAP Message Security Section 9; XML Encryption
Syntax and Processing. The WS-I announcement reports that the the WS-I Basic
Security Profile Working Group is "planning to incorporate the Web Services Security:
Kerberos Token Profile into the Basic Security Profile upon completion of the technical
work by the OASIS Web Services Security Technical Committee. In addition, WS-I is
considering incorporating other token profiles, such as the Web Services Security: SAML
Token Profile and the Web Services Security: XRML Token Profile into the Basic Security
Profile."

[April 12, 2004] "WS-I Re-Elects webMethods to Board of Directors. Adobe

Systems, America Online, Ford and Toshiba Join Web Services Interoperability Effort." "The Web Services Interoperability Organization ('WS-I') today announced that Andy
Astor, vice president, strategic solutions at webMethods, Inc., has been re-elected to the
Board of Directors by the WS-I member community. Astor will serve a two-year term
alongside representatives from Accenture, BEA Systems, Inc., Fujitsu Ltd., HP, IBM, Intel
Corp., Microsoft Corp., Oracle, SAP AG and Sun Microsystems. WS-I also announced
today that Adobe Systems, Inc., America Online, Inc., Ford Motor Co. and Toshiba have
joined as contributing members. 'That webMethods has been elected for a second-term
to WS-I is a tremendous vote of confidence in our leadership from the Web services
community,' said Andy Astor, vice president, strategic solutions at webMethods. 'We are
grateful for the opportunity to continue to leverage our integration and interoperability
experience to bring a platform-independent, pragmatic perspective to the WS-I Board of
Directors. As a leader in Web services-related standards effort for the past seven years,
webMethods has demonstrated its commitment to WS-I principles and will continue to
promote the adoption of specifications that enable Web services interoperability across all
platforms, applications and programming languages.' Interest in WS-I has remained high
since its founding in February, 2002, and end-user company involvement continues to
grow. Today, WS-I welcomed Adobe Systems, America Online, Ford Motor Co. and
Toshiba as contributing members. More than 30 percent of WS-I's membership is now
comprised of end-user companies from industries including automotive, financial
services, healthcare, insurance, telecommunications, and travel and hospitality..."

[March 17, 2004] WS-I Releases Final Testing Tools Package for Basic Profile
1.0 Compliance. An announcement from the Web Services Interoperability Organization
(WS-I) describes the final release of compliance testing tools for WS-I Basic Profile and
outlines plans to tackle Web Services Security. The WS-I Testing Tools Version 1.0
package approved by the WS-I membership contains the final release of the WS-I testing
tools implementation for the Basic Profile V1.0. Prepared as C# and Java
implementations, the tools are designed to help developers determine whether their Web

services are conformant with Profile Guidelines and may be used to verify a Web
service's compliance. A Service Communication Monitor "captures messages exchanged
with Web services, and stores these messages for analysis by the second tool, the Web
Service Profile Analyzer. The Analyzer evaluates messages captured by the Monitor, and
also validates the description and registration artifacts of the Web service. These artifacts
include the WSDL document(s) that describes the Web service, the XML schema files
that describe the data types used in the WSDL service definition, and the UDDI
registration entries. More than 300 test cases have been written and automated for the
Analyzer tool; each test case exercises between 50 and 90 test procedures. The output
from the Analyzer is a report that indicates whether or not a Web service meets the
interoperability guidelines of the WS-I Basic Profile. The report provides details on the
specific deviations and failures, so that users know which requirements of the WS-I Basic
Profile were not met." With the completion of the Basic Profile 1.0 deliverables, WS-I is
now turning its attention to the development of interoperability guidelines "to address
attachments and Web services security. In December 2003 WS-I published drafts of the
Basic Profile 1.1, Simple SOAP Binding Profile 1.0 and the Attachments Profile 1.0 for
public review. In addition, the Basic Security Profile Working Group expects to publish a
draft of the Basic Security Profile early next quarter. The Basic Security Profile will profile
the OASIS WS-Security specification and its associated normatively referenced
specifications. In February 2004 WS-I announced the availability of the first Security
Scenarios Working Group Draft for public review. This document outlines security risks in
building interoperable Web services and countermeasures for these risks."

[March 10, 2004] "WS-I Issues New Security Guidelines." By John K. Waters. In
Application Development Trends (March 10, 2004). "The Web Services Interoperability
(WS-I) Organization has lent a hand to Web services architects and developers looking
for security solutions with the release of a new report that identifies potential threats and
outlines countermeasures based on common scenarios. The WS-I's Security Scenarios
Working Group Draft is now available for public review... The 48-page draft report
describes challenges to ensuring data integrity, data confidentiality and message
uniqueness; lists specific threats, such as message alteration, falsified messages,
message replay and denial of service attacks; outlines countermeasures that utilize
HTTPS and SOAP Message Security 1.0; and includes a number of usage scenarios and
solutions that combine these technologies with the Message Exchange Patterns (MEPs)
that have been used in WS-I deliverables such as the Basic Profile 1.0 Sample
Applications... 'We're trying to take basic profiles like SOAP and make sure you can at
least protect the messages,' said committee member Eve Maler, standards architect at
Sun Microsystems during a press conference at the recent RSA security conference in
San Francisco... OASIS defines standards for a range of situations, [Hal] Lockhart said.
The purpose of the WS-I draft report, he noted, was to narrow the broad set of OASIS
recommendations to better fit the needs of WS-I members. 'The WS-I has taken the time
to identify the major categories of threats, challenges and mechanisms, he said. 'This
activity will form the basis for the problems that the security profile will solve'..." See
following bibliographic entry.


[February 25, 2004] WS-I Releases Public Working Draft Document on Security
Scenarios. The Web Services-Interoperability Organization (WS-I) has announced the
availability of a public review draft for WS-I Security Scenarios which defines the
requirements for and scope of the WS-I Basic Security Profile. Produced by members of
the WS-I Basic Security Profile Working Group, this document "is aimed at Web Services
architects and developers who are examining the security aspects of the Web Services
they are designing/developing. WS-I Security Scenarios "identifies security challenges [in
terms of] general security goals or features that inform the selection of specific security
requirements in scenarios. It also identifies the typical threats that prevent
accomplishment of each challenge, and identifies the typical countermeasures
(technologies and protocols) used to mitigate each threat. The draft documents potential
usage scenarios and the security challenges and threats that might apply to each, as
derived from the templates found in the Supply Chain Management Use Cases and
Scenarios documents." A subsequent draft will address security issues related to
attaching material to SOAP messages as, described in the WS-I Attachment Profile 1.0.
WS-I has requested input, suggestions, and other feedback on the draft from a wide
variety of industry participants in order to improve its quality over time. It is assumed that
the reader has a basic understanding of security technologies such as SSL/TLS, XML
encryption, digital signatures, and the OASIS Web Services Security specifiction. "WS-I is
also currently working on the Basic Security Profile, an interoperability profile involving
transport security, SOAP messaging security, and other security considerations
implicated by the Basic Profile 1.0. The Basic Security Profile is intended to compose with
other WS-I profiles and will reference existing specifications used to provide security,
including the OASIS Web Services Security 1.0 specification, and provide clarifications
and guidance designed to promote interoperability of those specifications. A Working
Group Draft of the Basic Security Profile is expected to be delivered in 2004Q2."

[January 27, 2004] "Parasoft Releases SOAPtest 2.5 for Comprehensive Web
Services Testing. Web Services Testing Product Now Offers Security Features, MIME
Attachment Support and Enhanced Load Testing Features/" - "Parasoft, leading provider
of Automated Error Prevention (AEP) software solutions, announced today the release of
SOAPtest 2.5, the most comprehensive Web services testing product available today,
verifying every aspect of a Web service from WSDL validation, to client/server unit and
functional testing, to performance testing. The latest version of SOAPtest offers support
for WS-Security, MIME attachments, enhanced load testing features, and other features
designed to help development teams prevent errors and accelerate time to market for
their Web service initiatives. 'As Web services mature and more companies adopt them,
they need comprehensive tools to address key issues such as interoperability, security,
change management and scalability,' said Gary Brunell, Parasoft Vice President of
Professional Services. 'SOAPtest 2.5 offers the functionality to address all of these issues
while improving the software lifecycle by preventing errors early in the development
process.' PPQ#What's New in SOAPtest 2.5#PPQ (1) WS-Security support including fully
configurable SOAP Headers and support for X509, SAML, username security tokens,
XML Digital Signature and XML Encryption. (2) MIME Attachment support including
meeting SOAP with Attachments and OASIS ebXML specifications and sending and

receiving both text/XML and binary attachments. (3) Enhanced load testing features
including SNMP and Windows monitors, customizable HTML reports and detailed report
histograms. (4) WS-I Analyzer Tool to verify WSDL and SOAP traffic for conformance,
includes WS-I Testing Tool 1.0 and produces WS-I conformance reports. (5) Supports
JMS and Asynchronous testing..."

[January 06, 2004] WS-I Basic Profile: Not Just Another Web Service
Specification." By Christopher Ferris (IBM). In Web Services Journal Volume 4, Issue 1
(January 2003). "The Final Material version of the WS-I Basic Profile 1.0 specification
released by the Web Services Interoperability Organization (WS-I) represents an
important milestone for WS-I and the Web services community as a whole. It specifies
the standards and technologies required for interoperability between Web services
implementations running on different software and operating system platforms... The
promise of interoperability is possibly the most important aspect of Web services
technologies. That promise stems from the fact that Web services has its foundations in
XML, which itself is interoperable across all platforms and programming languages.
However, because Web services leverages heavily on the extensible nature of XML, the
interoperability aspect of Web services is significantly challenged. While most, if not all,
vendors provide support for the established Web services standards, they are still
motivated to provide added value to their customers in the form of advanced feature
support for things such as security, reliability, transactions, and business process
orchestration. Because many of the advanced Web services features are still in the early
stages of development and adoption, developers and IT managers need more than just a
checklist of (emerging) standards when making project implementation or product
purchasing decisions. They need help in being able to determine when they are 'coloring
outside the lines' so that they can weigh the merits of incorporating these advanced
features against the importance of ensuring broad interoperability of the deployed
solution. WS-I was founded with a mission to provide users of Web services technology
with the guidance and tools that help them better understand where the boundary lies
between the interoperable and not-necessarily-interoperable solution spaces so that they
can make well-informed decisions. The WS-I Basic Profile 1.0 is, of course, just the tip of
the iceberg. WS-I has already begun work on a number of follow-on profiles for Web
services, including Attachments and Basic Security. Work will begin on future profiles,
tackling some of the more advanced Web services features as the various specifications
upon which they are based mature and stabilize and as the interoperability requirements
associated with these advanced features are better understood by the community..."

[December 10, 2003] "WS-I Delivers Sample Applications for Basic Profile.
Sample Applications Provide Real-World Business Requirements to Web Services." "The Web Services Interoperability Organization ('WS-I') today announced the general
availability of the WS-I Sample Application 1.0. This important deliverable consists of the
WS-I Supply Chain Management Use Cases 1.0, the WS-I Usage Scenarios 1.0, the WSI Supply Chain Management Technical Architecture 1.0 and Sample Application 1.0
implementations developed by 10 vendor companies. These documents and
implementations model a simplified supply chain management scenario and demonstrate

the features in the recently released WS-I Basic Profile 1.0. The availability of this
material was announced today at the XML Conference & Exposition 2003 taking place
this week in Philadelphia. 'The availability of the WS-I Sample Application 1.0 deliverables
help define best practices for using the Basic Profile 1.0, and provide the real-world
implementation guidance and support necessary for customers deploying Web services,'
said Sinisa Zimek, chairman of the Sample Applications Working Group. 'We believe that
the WS-I Sample Application 1.0 is an important catalyst in the WS-I effort to create
industry-level Web services profiles and tools.' The WS-I Sample Application 1.0 provides
a configurable collection of Web services, which exercise the WS-I Basic Profile 1.0 using
a supply chain scenario that models the interactions between multiple retail storefronts,
warehouses and manufacturers. Implementations of the Sample Application have been
delivered by BEA Systems, Bowstreet, Corillian, IBM, Microsoft, Novell, Oracle, Quovadx,
SAP, and Sun Microsystems. WS-I will be demonstrating these implementations at an
interoperability showcase this week at the XML Conference & Exposition 2003. The
Sample Application Technical Architecture 1.0 details a common design and
implementation of the supply chain management application. One of the goals of the WSI Sample Application 1.0 is to exploit as many of the aspects of the Basic Profile 1.0 as
possible. To this end, the Sample Application Technical Architecture implements several
schema-naming conventions, SOAP message formats, SOAP message styles, and
WSDL design practices that all conform to the Basic Profile..."

[November 18, 2003] "OMG, OAGI, and POSC Join WS-I. New Associate
Membership Category Extends Communication and Cooperation Among Key Web
Services Organizations." - "Today, the Web Services Interoperability Organization (WS-I)
announced that the Object Management Group (OMG), the Open Applications Group,
Inc. (OAGI), and the Petrotechnical Open Standards Consortium (POSC) have become
associate members of WS-I. This new membership category was created to improve
communication and cooperation between WS-I and standards development organizations
to best meet the needs of customers and the Web services industry. The announcement
was made at the Gartner Application Integration and Web Services Summit being held
this week in Baltimore. 'While WS-I and standards organizations like the ones announced
today have different purposes, we share a common vision for the future of Web services,'
said Ed Cobb, board director and chair of the WS-I Liaison Committee. 'WS-I is
committed to building and maintaining strong relationships with these organizations, and
the associate membership category enables these organizations to participate more
directly in the work of WS-I. In addition, WS-I continues to work with other standards
organizations through informal liaison channels.' [...] Associate member benefits to
qualified organizations include access to the WS-I member website and its documents,
access to technical working group materials, participation in technical working groups and
community meetings, and the use of the WS-I logo... WS-I is an open industry
organization committed to promoting consistent and reliable interoperability among Web
services across platforms, applications and programming languages. The organization
unites a diverse community of Web services companies to provide guidance,
recommended practices, and supporting resources for developing interoperable Web

services. Since its formation in February 2002, more than 170 companies have joined
WS-I..."

[September 18, 2003] "A Preview of WS-I Basic Profile 1.1." By Anish Karmarkar.
From O'Reilly WebServices.xml.com (September 16, 2003). "On 12th August 2003 WS-I
(Web Services Interoperability Organization) announced the release of the final
specification of Basic Profile 1.0 a set of recommendations on how to use web services
specifications to maximize interoperability. For developers, users, and vendors of web
services and web services tools this is a big leap forward to achieving interoperability in
the emerging and fast changing world of web services. But what else has WS-I been
working on? WS-I recognizes the fact that Basic Profile 1.0 is just a beginning and that it's
a long road toward web services maturity and interoperability. In its mission toward
accelerating the adoption of web services and promoting interoperability, the Basic Profile
Working Group, which developed Basic Profile 1.0, is tasked with generating Basic Profile
1.1 to incorporate attachments... Basic Profile 1.1, as the name indicates, is the next
version of Basic Profile. It builds on 1.0, adding support for SOAP Messages with
Attachments (SwA) and WSDL 1.1's Section 5 MIME bindings. As part of the process of
releasing a Profile, other Working Groups within WS-I develop sample applications and
test tools for the Profile. This ensures that the Profile is implementable and 'debugged'
before its final release. Like Basic Profile 1.0, Basic Profile 1.1 will be released with
sample applications and test tools. This article provides a preview of Basic Profile 1.1
based on the latest Working Group Draft. The Basic Profile Working Group has been
working on Basic Profile 1.1 since January 2003. In the course of its development the
WG identified more than 70 technical issues that needed to be resolved. Only a very few
minor ones remain. Please remember that this preview is based upon a Working Group
Draft; as a work in progress can (and almost certainly will) be modified as the draft Profile
is reviewed and refined... The most widely implemented and accepted attachment
technology is MIME. SwA combines MHTML and content-id URIs (CID) for referencing
MIME parts in SOAP. Basic Profile 1.1 has selected SwA as the attachment technology
and WSDL 1.1 Section 5 MIME bindings for describing SwA. Basic Profile 1.1, as with
Basic Profile 1.0, clarifies, fixes, and subsets the relevant specs to make it more
interoperable and removes ambiguities. This addresses a real need that developers and
users of web services have when dealing with large binary data and transporting it within
a SOAP 1.1 Envelope. The direction that Basic Profile 1.1 has taken fits very nicely with
the direction that XMLP WG has taken with respect to attachments for SOAP 1.2, as
documented in SOAP Message Transmission Optimization Mechanism (MTOM). Both
use MIME and are based on SwA... Interoperable attachments is one of the features that
is frequently demanded by developers and users of web services. The Basic Profile
Working Group addresses this need by including SwA in Basic Profile 1.1, resolving
ambiguities, and by filling in the gaps of existing specifications. Furthermore, Basic Profile
1.1 also enables language binding tools to generate appropriate APIs to take full
advantage of attachments..."

[September 11, 2003] Sun Announces J2EE V1.4 Support for WS-I Compliant
Web Services Applications. Sun Microsystems, Inc. has announced the availability Java

2 Platform Enterprise Edition (J2EE) version 1.4 source code providing support for the
final WS-I Basic Profile and the J2EE programming model for portable Web services
applications. The source-code release includes compatibility tests, allowing J2EE
licensees to make progress on implementing J2EE 1.4. Sun's support of WS-I
interoperability specifications helps relieve the burden upon Java developers to learn
"specific Web services specifications or to acquire WS-I interoperability expertise; profile
guidelines are included in Java platforms and development toolkits such as the Java Web
Services Developer Pack (Java WSDP). To date, Sun has released several versions of its
J2EE platform based on early WS-I specifications, such as Java Web Services Developer
Pack 1.2 and J2EE 1.4 SDK Beta 2. Once J2EE 1.4 is finalized, Sun will release
compatibility tests, source code and a software development toolkit (SDK). With these
tools, Java developers can save time and money by working with standard APIs for XML
and Web Services, such as JAXP, JAXB, JAX-RPC and JAX-R, instead of proprietary
APIs that may change from vendor to vendor. Java and XML technologies allow users to
easily develop applications that can be seamlessly deployed across all major operating
platforms, including Solaris, Linux and Windows. Java has long been the developer's
choice for Web services, and J2EE 1.4 represents a culmination of work by the JCP and
the technology industry to deliver the first platform to support the WS-I Basic Profile."

[September 11, 2003] "Sun is First to Market With Platform for WS-I Compliant
Web Services Applications. Recent Beta Release of the J2EE 1.4 Software Developer Kit
and Java Web Services Developer Pack 1.2 Demonstrate Sun's Java Web Services
Leadership." - "Sun Microsystems, Inc. today announced the availability of a qualification
release of the Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE) version 1.4 source code for
licensees of the J2EE platform. Available less than one month after the WS-I Basic Profile
was finalized, the source code delivers support for the final WS-I Basic Profile and
includes the J2EE programming model for portable Web services applications. The
source-code release includes compatibility tests, allowing J2EE licensees to make
progress on implementing J2EE 1.4. 'With our partners and as a WS-I board member,
Sun is leading the charge in supporting standards-compliant, Java Web Services
platforms,' said Jeff Jackson, vice president of Sun J2EE platform and application server
engineering, Sun Microsystems, Inc. 'Java and Web Services merge in J2EE 1.4 as the
preferred platform for building enterprise-grade applications and the only available
software environment that is platform independent and interoperable by design. The
introduction of J2EE 1.4, with its support for more Web services standards and protocols
than any other platform, is a prime example of Sun's leadership position in this space.'
WS-I specifications are designed to ensure interoperability between different vendors'
Web services products. Through the Java Community Process (JCP), Java provides
open application programming interfaces (APIs) to provide enterprises with a choice and
to keep developers from becoming dependent upon a single vendor's technology. Java
developers can save time and money by working with standard APIs for XML (Extensible
Markup Language) and Web Services, such as JAXP, JAXB, JAX-RPC and JAX-R,
instead of proprietary APIs that may change from vendor to vendor. Java and XML
technologies allow users to easily develop applications that can be seamlessly deployed
across all major operating platforms, including Solaris, Linux and Windows. In addition,

Java developers won't be tasked with learning specific Web services specifications or
acquiring WS-I interoperability expertise, because profile guidelines are included in Java
platforms and development toolkits such as the Java Web Services Developer Pack (Java
WSDP). The Java platform also enables IT organizations to leverage their current
technology investments by providing simplified integration with applications and legacy
systems, reducing cost and complexity within the organization. As a board member of the
WS-I organization, Sun is continuing to make key technological contributions to enhance
the interoperability of Web services. To date, Sun has released several versions of its
J2EE platform based on early WS-I specifications, such as Java Web Services Developer
Pack 1.2 and J2EE 1.4 SDK Beta 2. Once J2EE 1.4 is finalized, Sun will release
compatibility tests, source code and a software development toolkit (SDK). Java has long
been the developer's choice for Web services, and J2EE 1.4 represents a culmination of
work by the JCP and the technology industry to deliver the first platform to support the
WS-I Basic Profile..." See also: Java Web Services Developer Pack V1.2 Supports WS-I,
WS-Security, and UBL Applications."

[August 31, 2003] "WS-I Plans Security, Messaging, Other Profiles." By Paula
Rooney. In (August 13, 2003). "The Web Services Interoperability Organization is now
turning its attention to security, messaging and other profiles. The forthcoming WS-I
guideline for implementing security in Web services will be based on the WS-Security
specification currently before the OASIS standards body and will be finished in roughly
one year, said Chris Ferris, chairman of the WS-I Basic Profile Working Group and
architect in the emerging e-business industry architecture at IBM. Ferris spoke at the XML
Web Services One Conference in Boston on Tuesday. Ferris said the development of
additional 'features' such as security and messaging on top of the Basic Profile 1.0 will
enable more complex Web services transactions. The WS-I will likely provide profiles for
reliable messaging, policy, service-level agreements as well as transaction coordination,
Ferris said. The first WS-I security profile will guide developers in how to implement a
variety of security standards and specifications including SSL, IPSec and HTTP
authentication, Ferris said. 'You can take WS-Security and make it a service,' said Ferris.
'It'll take nine months of technical work, and we'll have a basic security profile in about
one year.' Security will become more important as SOAP messages and Web services
begin to cross corporate boundaries, said Harris Reynolds, engineer and technical
evangelist at The Mind Electric. Reynolds said the Business Process Execution
Language (BPEL) that has been submited as a potential specification to OASIS will
enable cross-enterprise Web services business process integration..."

[August 15, 2003] "Oracle Helps Developers Build Interoperable Web Services." "Oracle Corp., the world's largest enterprise software company, today announced the
availability of a new sample application to help developers test the interoperability of
software and Web services, based on the latest recommendations from the Web Services
Interoperability (WS-I) organization. The sample application -- an early release of WS-I
supply chain application for Oracle9i Application Server --implements a real world supply
chain scenario by modeling the interactions between multiple Web storefronts, retail
warehouses and manufacturers. The sample is based on WS-I Basic Profile 1.0, and

demonstrates how Web services can connect heterogeneous systems and autonomous
organizations. As a result, developers will be able to test the interoperability of Java 2
Enterprise Edition (J2EE)-based Web services deployed on Oracle9i Application Server
with Web services deployed on other platforms such as .NET and J2EE application
servers from other vendors. The sample application can be downloaded free-of-charge
from Oracle Technology Network (OTN)... The sample application utilizes many of the
features of the WS-I Basic Profile, including a variety of XML schema naming
conventions, SOAP message formats, SOAP message styles, and WSDL design
practices. The upcoming release of Oracle JDeveloper, recently announced at JavaOne
2003, is scheduled to feature integrated support for WS-I Basic Profile 1.0 Conformance
Testing, enhancing the existing Web services capabilities of the tool, which include instant
deployment and testing with the embedded Oracle9i Application Server, local and remote
debugging, profiling and integrated SOAP message monitoring. The new feature will
enable developers to deliver WS-I Basic Profile 1.0 compatible applications and services
more quickly and easily... The WS-I sample supply chain application for Oracle9i
Application Server is immediately available for free download from Oracle's online
developer community Web site, OTN, which also offers many additional resources for
Web services developers and architects. A developer's preview of the new Oracle
JDeveloper is scheduled to be available for free download and evaluation from OTN by
the end of the year..."

[August 12, 2003] "WS-I Announces General Availability of the Basic Profile 1.0.
WS-I Member Community Delivers Guidelines to Ensure Interoperability, Reduce Cost
and Lower Complexity of Implementing Web Services Solutions." - "At XML Web
Services One the Web Services Interoperability Organization (WS-I) announced the
general availability of the Basic Profile 1.0. The Basic Profile 1.0, which has been formally
approved by the WS-I member community, consists of implementation guidelines on how
core Web services specifications should be used together to develop interoperable Web
services. The specifications covered by the Basic Profile include SOAP 1.1, WSDL 1.1,
UDDI 2.0, XML 1.0 and XML Schema. 'Starting today, every Web service developer and
provider will have a common framework for implementing interoperable solutions, and
buyers will have a common reference point for purchasing decisions,' said Tom Glover,
chairman of WS-I. 'WS-I has resolved more than 200 interoperability issues associated
with using the core Web services specifications together. The Basic Profile 1.0 will
significantly simplify the task of implementing interoperable Web services solutions within
and across enterprise boundaries.' 'Support for the Basic Profile is the baseline for
interoperable Web services,' said Dan Sholler, vice president of Technology Research
Services at the META Group. 'Customers should demand that all of their Web servicesenabled technology be compliant with the Basic Profile, and that in turn will lay the
foundation for Web services to fulfill their promise and provide technology independent
interoperability.' Later this Fall, WS-I will release Test Tools and Sample Applications
supporting the Basic Profile 1.0. The Test Tools, available in both C# and Java(TM)
implementations, are designed to inspect and validate that a Web service meets the
interoperability requirements of the Basic Profile. The Sample Applications demonstrate
the Basic Profile at work, including the design, implementation, test and deployment of

Web services, based upon selected business scenarios and implemented on 10 different
platforms. In parallel with the release of the Test Tools, WS-I will announce how Web
services software vendors, hardware vendors, and services providers will be able to claim
conformance of their products to the Basic Profile 1.0..."

[July 29, 2003] "Double Standards." By Sean Rhody (WSJ Editor-in-Chief). In

Web Services Journal Volume 3, Issue 8 (August 2003), page 3. "In June I attended the
JavaOne conference... and was reminded, once again, that the lack of a single standards
body is a serious roadblock to implementation of Web services... I was further reminded
of the mess we're in by some of the Web services presentations. While obviously biased
toward Java (it was JavaOne, after all), what really got me was the way everyone needed
to explain how this specification came from HP, that standard was developed by W3C,
and OASIS has a competing specification to some other specification. It's clear that there
are too many bodies producing standards, not to mention too many standards
themselves. The Java model works somewhat better, with a single standards organization
and the JSR process. Rather than develop competing specifications (SAML or WSSecurity, for example), the JCP provides guidance from multiple companies toward the
creation of a single standard that all Java vendors will comply with. No one has to decide
whether to use BPML or BPEL, or the Java equivalent... I would propose that WS-I
become the central Web services body, and that the members of the other bodies treat
them as the Supreme Court of Web services. Once they rule on a specification, let there
be no further disputes. Let's limit the number of specifications so the innovations can go
toward making a smaller set of standards better. Of course the WS-I may not want to act
as the final arbiter of Web services fate, and for various reasons, many vendors may not
want the WS-I as currently constituted to be the sole determining body for Web
services..." [alt URL]

[July 14, 2003] "WS-I Discusses Interoperable Web Services." By Allison Taylor.
In ComputerWorld Australia (July 14, 2003). "The speed and extent of Web services
adoption depends on the success of making them interoperable, the president and
chairman of the Web Services Interoperability Organization (WS-I) said at a roundtable
discussion on Web services in Toronto last Thursday. Tom Glover and a slew of WS-I
member companies including Microsoft Canada Corp., IBM Canada Ltd., Nortel
Networks, NetManage Canada Inc., Hummingbird Ltd. and Cognos Inc., participated in
the discussion which focused on the importance of interoperable Web services for the
entire IT industry and how those standards should be made. The WS-I is a group of about
160 software companies working to identify Web services interoperability requirements
and developing materials to address those needs. The groups that comprise the WS-I try
to understand how Web services are used throughout the industry, try to understand the
requirements and then, as a community, the groups attempt to resolve challenges, define
services and define how those services behave at an infrastructure level, Glover said. By
taking the resources within IT and working together, the WS-I hopes to create a set of
standards to help everyone understand what Web services look like, he added. As an
example of the importance of developing standards, Glover highlighted the battle
between the BETA video tape versus VHS, which resulted in the market and public

determining VHS as the winner. 'This battle is not the model we want for Web services.
It's not efficient and it costs too much. We don't want the market penalized but we want
Web services to be understood,' he said, adding that standards would ensure the market
completely understands Web services. Phil Edholm, chief technology officer and vicepresident of network architecture for Nortel Networks, said there is a great economic and
productivity value in having interoperable Web services and as such, it's critical to Web
Services to have the WS-I succeed'..."

[June 03, 2003] "WS-I Basic Profile: Why Wait?" By Darryl K. Taft. In eWEEK
(June 03, 2003). "While the Web Services Interoperability Organization (WS-I) is working
toward a basic profile for interoperability of Web services, customers should not wait but
should use tools that are available today. During a session at the Microsoft TechEd 2003
conference here, Yasser Shohoud, a program manager on the Microsoft XML Messaging
team, said he does not know when the industry will see a basic profile from WS-I, but it
should not matter. I don't know when the WS-I Basic Profile will be ready, but does it
matter?' Shohoud said. 'I think the world should not wait for that.' Shohoud said, 'The
bottom line is when you're trying to interoperate you have tools that need to work
together,' but there are few tools that support the broad spectrum of interoperability
issues. In the interim, while a WS-I Basic Profile is being hashed out, 'people should
avoid things in the basic profile that are not widely used,' Shohoud said. 'If you are ready
to build Web services today, you should not be waiting for any profile.' The WS-I Basic
Profile 1.0 was approved as a draft specification in April, but has not been approved as a
final document yet..."

[April 23, 2003] "WS-I Announces Availability of Testing Tools. Pre-Release Now
Available for Public Comment." - "The Web Services Interoperability Organization ('WS-I')
today announced the availability of two testing tools for interoperability assessment with
the WS-I Basic Profile. Pre-release versions of the Web Service Communication Monitor
and the Web Service Profile Analyzer are now available. The tools, with implementations
in both C# and Java, can be used on any Web services platform. The testing tools and
their supporting documentation and processes were developed by the WS-I Test Tools
Working Group. 'The tools have been designed in such a way to allow for expansion and
extension, so they can accommodate the Basic Profile as well as future profiles,' said
Jacques Durand, chair of the Test Tools Working Group, and director, Industry Relations
at Fujitsu Software Corporation. 'They can be configured to specifically address
whichever profile definition they need to verify. Testing results will help developers ensure
that their Web services meet the WS-I interoperability guidelines.' The Web Service
Communication Monitor ('Monitor') captures messages exchanged between Web services
and the software that invokes them and stores the messages for later analysis. Today's
pre-release version captures HTTP-based SOAP messages. The Web Service Profile
Analyzer ('Analyzer') evaluates messages captured by Monitor, and also validates the
description and registration artifacts of the Web service. This includes the WSDL
document(s) that describes the Web service, and the XML schema files that describe the
data types used in the WSDL service definition and the UDDI registration entries. The
output from Analyzer is a report that indicates whether or not a Web service meets the

interoperability guidelines of the WS-I Basic Profile 1.0. The report provides details on the
specific deviations and failures, so that users know which requirements of the WS-I Basic
Profile were not met..." Note: Versions of the tool were available for C# and Java.

[April 08, 2003] "Sun Wastes Little Time Preparing WS-I 'Wish List'." By Vance
McCarthy. In Integration Developer News (April 07, 2003). "Sun Microsystems is wasting
little time mapping out their agenda for contributing to the WS-I (Web Services
Interoperability Organization), a multi-vendor web services group of more than 160+
vendors co-founded by Microsoft and IBM. Sun's long campaign for a seat on WS-I's
board came to a successful close last week, as Mark Hapner, a Sun distinguished
engineer and chief web services strategist for the company, was voted to a two-year term.
Following the vote, Hapner [said] that he felt 'WS-I had made a very good start,' but
added that Sun intended to use its new influence as a board member to push for a few
issues. 'Our job is to represent the Java and J2EE developer community, and that is what
will do,' Hapner said. Java vendors IBM, BEA, Borland and Rational are all members of
WS-I. While WS-I execs and publicly hoping that Sun's membership in the group's board
will speed development of web services standards, it's equally possible that Sun could
actually slow things down, depending how you look at it... Hapner wants WS-I to improve
the way the group interacts with formal standards bodies, notably the W3C and OASIS.
He noted that only two pending web services standards (WS-Security and DIME) had
been presented to a formal standards body, and claimed that proposals advocated by
WS-I members (including the WS family of standards being proposed by IBM and
Microsoft) should also be submitted to standards group... [Hapner also wants ] stricter
guides for cross-platform interoperability: 'WS-I's approach to interoperability between
platforms may need some extra work,' and, as a result, he said he intends to push WS-I
to make its conformance procedures more strict, and overall 'improve the quality of
platform conformance.' Under the current WS-I approach, Hapner claimed, there are
some 'very simple ways' for developers to get caught in building non-conformant specs..."

[April 01, 2003] WS-I Charters Basic Security Profile Working Group (BSPWG).
The Web Services Interoperability Organization has issued a public announcement for a
Basic Security Profile Working Group (BSPWG). "The BSPWG was chartered following
the organization's fourth plenary session held recently in Salt Lake City. The formation of
the BSPWG is the result of several months of research and planning conducted by the
Basic Security Work Plan Working Group, a security task force chaired by Eve Maler,
XML standards architect at Sun Microsystems. The newly chartered BSPWG will develop
an interoperability profile involving transport security, SOAP messaging security and other
security considerations implicated by the WS-I Basic Profile. The Basic Security Profile is
intended to be an extension to the WS-I Basic Profile 1.0 and will reference existing
specifications used to provide security and provide clarifications and guidance designed
to promote interoperability of those specifications. The BSPWG will also develop a set of
usage scenarios and their component message exchange patterns (MEPs) to guide their
work. A timeline for the deliverables will be determined in the next month."


[March 31, 2003] "WS-I: Guiding Interoperability." By Jeff Reser (IBM Strategic
Software Solutions). In .NET Magazine (March 2003). "The Web Services Interoperability
Organization (WS-I) was formed in February 2002 to address the issues surrounding the
interoperable nature of a Web services-oriented architecture. WS-I isn't a standards
development organization, but it works closely with a number of standards bodies, such
as the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS),
World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), and Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), to
promote and utilize the right set of technologies in compatible business scenarios. The
WS-I community grows as companies realize their contributions to WS-I active working
groups benefit a common set of goals: to enable and promote the practical adoption of
Web services technologies and open standards. WS-I concerns itself with the underlying
themes of the aches and pains in implementing Web services across disciplines.
Recently, WS-I published a working draft set of architectural guidelines as part of its first
major deliverable: the WS-I Basic Profile. The Basic Profile consists of implementation
guidelines recommending how a set of core Web services specifications (SOAP 1.1,
WSDL 1.1, UDDI 2.0, XML 1.0, and XML Schema) should be used together to develop
interoperable Web services. It helps to ensure standards developed by different
organizations and vendors interoperate with each other, especially in the increasingly
significant Web services areas. The WS-I scenarios included in the profile describe how
you can apply Web services to meet real-world business needs. These scenarios provide
real-world examples of how you can utilize Web services, while also demonstrating how
you can use the specifications individually and/or with others. The WS-I deliverables also
include sample applications that support the profiles and scenarios, and testing tools and
materials. These sample applications of basic Web services illustrate best practices for
implementation and are developed in multiple programming languages using multiple
development tools. Sample applications serve as working examples for companies
planning to implement Web services. The test materials and tools can be used to verify
that the interactions observed with the monitored Web services conform to the set of
guidelines and test assertions that define the profiles..."

[March 27, 2003] "Sun Wins WS-I Seat." By Darryl K. Taft. In eWEEK (March 27,
2003). "Sun Microsystems Inc. has won a two-year position on the Web Services
Interoperability Organization (WS-I) board of directors, sources said. In winning this slot,
Sun joins the leaders in Web services on the board of an organization initially formed with
the apparent intent of keeping the Unix systems vendor out of its ranks. Now Sun is a
member of that board, with the same rights and responsibilities as the rest of the 11
members... The other open board seat went to webMethods Inc. The company will serve
a one-year term. Mark Hapner, Sun's lead architect for Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE)
and chief Web services strategist for Java Web services, will represent Sun on the WS-I
board. Hapner told eWEEK in a prior interview that he was pleased to have the
opportunity to run for the WS-I board slot and said that Sun has participated 'strongly' in
the organization since it joined last October. Sun has participated in WS-I efforts involving
business process integration, developing sample applications for testing interoperability,
and chairing a security working group. The Santa Clara, Calif., company also has been
instrumental in developing and promoting Web services standards like WS-Reliability, he

said. And Sun has made conformance to the WS-I Basic Profile 1.0 a requirement of
J2EE 1.4 compliance, he added... Sun's work with the Java Community Process, which is
the multi-vendor coalition that votes on Java platform specifications, gave the company
an advantage over competitors for the slot as well, Hapner said. 'We found in our work in
the Java compatibility arena that it takes significant investment and dogged persistence to
achieve interoperability,' he said. 'The payback is customers feel secure in broadly
pursuing interoperability.' Indeed, Sun's Java expertise itself was a distinguishing factor
that set Sun apart from others in the running, the company said. 'We are the
representative for Java and J2EE, which will be one of the two primary platforms on
which people will develop Web services,' Hapner said. Hapner said Sun's history is that
of a leader in the Web services space. The company has had strong participation in the
evolution of Simple Object Access Protocol 1.2 and Web Services Description Language
1.2, as well as other specifications and foundational Web technologies, he said."

[March 19, 2003] "Web Services Interoperability Organisation (WS-I.org): What's

it All About?" By [Staff]. From WebServices.org (March 19, 2003). ['WebServices.org
interviews Chris Ferris, on his views of WS-I as IBM's representative to the Basic Profile
WG. Chris is an Architect with IBM's Emerging e-business Industry Architecture group
and is actively engaged in the development of Web Services and e-business standards.
He currently represents IBM on the WS-I Basic Profile Working Group (WG) as editor of
the Basic Profile 1.1 specification. He also represents IBM on the W3C Web Services
Architecture WG.'] Excerpts: "The main objective of WS-I is to promote and enable the
interoperability of Web services, which I believe is the most fundamental aspect of Web
services. People are using Web services to integrate their heterogenous computing
environments, both within and external to their organizational boundaries. Without
interoperability, this becomes an impossible task... First, there is no single standards
organization that 'owns' Web services. The W3C is working on some of the foundational
technologies such as XML, XML Schema, XML Signatures and Encryption, SOAP and
WSDL. OASIS is working on some of the higher-level technologies such as WS-Security,
UDDI, Remote Portals, etc. The IETF is responsible for some of the lower-level protocol
technologies such as HTTP, TLS, etc. WS-I fulfills a needed function in providing a single
venue for integrating the efforts of these various organizations. Secondly, with regards to
SOAP1.1 and WSDL1.1, there is no standards organization that 'owns' those
specifications; WS-I fulfills a need by providing clarifications and constraints on those de
facto standards that will enable vendors and developers to implement and use these
technologies in an interoperable manner... WS-I has no plans of defining new
specifications for Web services technologies. That is not its role... WS-I recently agreed to
address the issue of attachments for SOAP. The Basic Profile v1.1 will incorporate the
SOAP Messages with Attachments (MIME) specification and provide a means for
describing the use of attachments in WSDL. We expect that this work will be completed in
a relatively short period of time, hopefully the technical work will be completed by April of
this year and the Basic Profile 1.1 can begin its own review and approval cycle,
culminating in the early summer of 2003. Additionally, we are in the process of planning
for a Security Profile and will be likely taking on the question of how one can claim

conformance of platform and/or tools (e.g., .NET, WebLogic or Websphere) with a

profile(s). It should be an interesting and challenging year..."

[March 19, 2003] "Sun Expects Bumpy Ride Ahead With WS-I. [Performance,
Measurement & Standards.]" By Paula Rooney. In CMPNetAsia (March 19, 2003). "As it
tries to get one of its own on the executive board of the WS-I, Sun Microsystems expects
a controversial and politically bumpy road ahead for the interoperability organisation. Ed
Julson, Sun's group marketing manager for Java and Web Services, said only two out of
14 proposed WS-I standards being tossed around by founders Microsoft and IBM have
been submitted as standards -- WS-I security and Direct Internet Messaging
Encapsulation (DIME) -- and that spells possible trouble. 'Take a look at the 14 standards
defined by the GXA [Global XML Web Services Architecture], largely by Microsoft and
Sun. What about the 12 other specs?' Julson said at the Web Services Edge 2003 East
conference, Boston. 'A spec isn't a standard. There will be debate within the WS-I on
what is a standard and what is not. WS-I hasn't gotten to the hard part yet'... While the
creation of the WS-I organization was praised by a pleased but jaded IT industry, Sun
fumed over being left out. However, Sun officially jumped on the WS-I bandwagon late
last year and is now lobbying to get one of its executives on the executive board with
Microsoft, IBM and Oracle. At the conference, the Sun official hinted that the WS-I could
become yet another API battleground that characterized the 1990s. 'We don't want to
have to pay a tax,' he said..."

[February 28, 2003] "WS-I Announces Board Nominations." By Darryl K. Taft. In

eWEEK (February 26, 2003). "The Web Services Interoperability Organization (WS-I)
Wednesday announced the nominations for two openings on the organization's board of
directors. WS-I officials said representatives from Cape Clear Software Inc., Nokia Corp.,
SeeBeyond Technology Corp., Sun Microsystems Inc., VeriSign Inc. and webMethods
Inc. have been nominated for election to the organization's board of directors. The limited
number of nominees means a better possibility for Sun to join the board, where many -including company insiders -- have, since the inception of WS-I a year ago, said Sun
rightfully belongs. Sun cleared the way for joining WS-I in October after much wrangling,
finger pointing and murmuring regarding Sun's role as an innovator in the world of Web
services. WS-I officials said elections will be held in mid-March, with the results being
announced March 28 and the new directors beginning their one- to two-year terms on
April 1, 2003. A WS-I spokeswoman explained that the newly elected board members
would have tenure of one or two years. The usual term for an elected board member is
two years, and founding members such as IBM Corp. and Microsoft Corp. are
permanently in position. 'The basic story is that there will be two directors elected,' a WS-I
spokeswoman said. 'The one with the fewer votes during the March election receives a
12-month term. The one with the most votes receives the standard 24-month term. The
usual term for an elected director is 24 months. This start up aberration is in place so that
we can establish a staggered election schedule were one director position is filled each
year.' The nominated companies and individuals are: Jorgen Thelin, chief scientist at
Cape Clear; Juhani Murto, senior manager of Web services architecture at Nokia; Ugo
Corda, principal standards analyst at SeeBeyond; Mark Hapner, distinguished engineer

and chief Web services strategist at Sun; Sundar Krishnamurthy, a product manager at
VeriSign; and Andy Astor, vice president of Enterprise Web Services at webMethods..."

[February 21, 2003] "Sun Trumpets Royalty-Free Web Services Specs. Company
Challenges Microsoft, IBM." By Paul Krill. In InfoWorld (February 20, 2003). "Royalty-free
industry specifications are needed to enable Web services to fulfill its potential as a
mechanism for business process integration on a massive scale, Sun officials stressed
during a Sun 'Chalk Talk' session in San Francisco on Thursday. Any requirement that
specific vendors be paid royalties for use of their technologies in standardized Web
services specifications could stifle the growth of Web services, said Mark Bauhaus, Sun
vice president of Java Web services. Sun wants its royalty-free position to be accepted by
other members of the Web Services Interoperability Organization (WS-I) and is running
for election to a seat on the WS-I governing board in March. Specifically, Microsoft and
IBM need to embrace royalty-free Web services, specifications, according to Bauhaus.
With the vast increase in devices accessing the Internet, which could eventually number
into the billions, and the low cost of Internet access, Web services are poised for dramatic
growth as a business process integration mechanism for a variety of applications,
Bauhaus said, but Web services must be royalty-free and based on open standards, and
specifications must be converged. 'The headlines that we're writing now are about Web
services. Is it going to be royalty-free or is someone going to hijack it?' Bauhaus said. He
noted that IBM and Microsoft have produced a proposed specification for automating
interaction between Web services, called Business Process Execution Language for Web
Services (BPEL4WS). This proposal has not yet been submitted to a standards
organization. Sun has a competing proposal, Web Services Choreography Interface
(WSCI), being examined by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)..."

[February 12, 2003] "WS-I Sets Basic Profile for Interoperable Web Services." By
Vance McCarthy and Rob Cheng. In Integration Developer News (February 10, 2003).
"The Web Services Interoperability Organization's 48-page Basic Profile draft document,
edited by WS-I members from Microsoft, IBM, BEA Systems, and webMethods, is
designed to present an exhaustive list of implementation areas In specific, the WS-I Basic
Profile aims to spell out a set of open (non-proprietary) web services specifications for
how developers and vendors should implement SOAP, WSDL and other key firstgeneration web services technologies to insure interoperability between different
technologies (such as Java and .Net, Java and Windows). The Basic Profile's
implementation guidelines recommend how SOAP 1.1, WSDL 1.1, UDDI 2.0, XML 1.0
and XML Schema should be used together to develop interoperable Web services, drilling
down into the following implementation areas: (1) Messaging -- The exchange of key
SOAP elements, including the SOAP processing model and XML representations of
SOAP messages; (2) Service Description -- How web services and/or objects are
prepared and transmitted (Document Structure, Types, Messages, Port Types, Bindings,
etc.) (3) Discovery: metadata that enables the advertisement of a Web service's
capabilities; (4) Security -- The provision of integrity, privacy, authentication and
authorization (HTTPS, Certificate Authorities, Encryption Algorithms)... 'WS-I is looking to
provide a single point of aggregation or contact for all interoperability activity,' said Rob

Cheng, chairman of WS-I's marketing communications committee. 'Without this

organization, you would actually have to have a large amount of your staff and resources
focused on all the different [standards] activities, and then try to figure out how they all
work together. To get more insight on the role WS-I hopes to play for developers and
implementers of web services, Integration Developer News spoke in-depth with Cheng..."
[Q: 'What's next up for WS-I? Any further add-ons to the current Basic Profile in the
works?'] A: (Cheng) "We will have a relatively short term around step that will handle
SOAP with attachments. This is something that has been driven by the membership, and
something that has been discussed by the end user companies and the smaller vendors
to have attachment support. The SOAP with attachments be handled in an updated Basic
Profile (v1.1), and implementation issues for SOAP 1.2 will come later this year..."

[February 04, 2003] "Sun to Standardize Web Services in J2EE 1.4. Next Version
Supports WS-I's Basic Profile Specification." By James Niccolai. In InfoWorld (February
04, 2003). "Sun Microsystems will incorporate an important specification with the next
version of its enterprise Java platform that is designed to ensure interoperability among
Web services applications. Version 1.4 of Sun's Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE), which
is due for release mid-year, will incorporate the Basic Profile specification developed by
the Web Services Interoperability Organization. The WS-I is a multi-vendor group
founded by IBM, BEA Systems, Microsoft and others to help define standards for the
emerging Web services model. The Basic Profile defines a standard method for
employing a handful of technologies that have become central to Web services. They
include XML (Extensible Markup Language) and SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol)
for messaging, WSDL (Web Services Description Language) for describing services, and
UDDI (Universal Description, Discovery and Integration) for looking them up on a
network. Some developers have used those technologies already, but without the
programming and data models laid out in the Basic Profile they have had no assurance
that their applications will interoperate with those of other developers. Adding the Basic
Profile to the next version of J2EE is intended to provide that assurance, said Ralph
Galantine, a group marketing manager at Sun. Java licensees including Sun, Oracle, IBM
and BEA are expected to release certified J2EE 1.4 products soon after the standard is
finalized. As a member of the WS-I, Microsoft is also expected to back the Basic Profile,
in a rare example of cooperation between Microsoft and its rivals in the Java camp. A
Microsoft spokeswoman noted that the specification has yet to be finalized, but said
Microsoft will support it in software products when it's completed. A draft of the WS-I
Basic Profile was released in October, and at that time the group was shooting for
completion early this year. .. The Web services model provides a way for linking different
types of business applications together, either within an organization or, it's hoped,
among partners, suppliers and customers for streamlining commerce. More ambitiously,
proponents say, Web services can be used to "expose" business programs, such as a
retirement plan application, as services that can be used by other companies. After a
year of steady hype, however, the model has taken off only gradually and in a limited way,
analysts have said. Concerns have been raised about security, a lack of clearly defined
standards and the sheer complexity of the development work involved. Adding the WS-I
Basic Profile is intended to go some way towards meeting some of those concerns..."


[January 30, 2003] WS-I Publishes Supply Chain Management Candidate
Review Drafts. The Web Services-Interoperability Organization (WS-I) has released a
collection of Candidate Review Draft documents which "model a simple supply chain
management application and serve to demonstrate all of the scenarios in the WS-I Basic
Profile 1.0 and how a Web services application might be designed, implemented and
deployed to conform to the Basic Profile." The draft WS-I Basic Profile is designed as a
set of non-proprietary Web services specifications along with clarifications which promote
interoperability. The new documents include a Sample Application Supply Chain
Management Architecture, Supply Chain Management Use Case Model, and WS-I
Usage Scenarios. The "advancement of these documents to Candidate Review Drafts is
an invitation to the Web services community to provide technical feedback. This second
wave of deliverables from WS-I represents a significant milestone as it prepares to
release the final version of the Basic Profile 1.0 in the second quarter of 2003. Availability
[of the documents] will help define best practices for using the Basic Profile 1.0 and
provide the real-world implementation guidance and support necessary for customers
deploying Web services." Supporting resources for the Supply Chain Management
Sample Application (source code, WSDL files, etc) are in preparation and will be posted
to the WS-I website.

Announcement 2003-01-30: "WS-I Publishes Sample Applications, Use Cases,

and Scenarios for Public Review and Comment. Candidate Review Drafts for Supply
Chain Management. Sample Application Illustrates Usage of WS-I Basic Profile 1.0."

[January 29, 2003] "WS-I Members Take Stand Against 'Big-Name Bias'." By
Gavin Clarke [ComputerWire]. In The Register (January 29, 2003). "Small and medium
sized ISVs are vying to lead an IBM and Microsoft Corp-backed web services
organization, amid sentiment the group's direction is being misdirected by big-name
vendors, Gavin Clarke writes... webMethods Inc and Cape Clear Software Inc told
ComputerWire yesterday they will stand for election to the board of the Web Services
Interoperability (WS-I) organization, in the hope of making the board more representative
of common members' interests. The vendors are the first companies to be named as
candidates as the WS-I has refused to release details, saying its constitution does not
require disclosure. To date only Sun Microsystems Inc has been named as a potential
candidate for elections, due in March. webMethods Inc and Cape Clear spoke as it
emerged yesterday that WS-I has agreed to add support for Simple Object Access
Protocol (SOAP) attachments to its first major piece of published work, the Basic Profile
1.0 currently in public draft. Support for SOAP attachments would ensure a standardsbased approach is taken in the Basic Profile for adding binary attachments, such as
JPEG files, to SOAP messages. Failure to include SOAP attachments means files must,
instead, be encoded in the main SOAP message by a sender and then de-coded by the
recipient in a process that reduces the potential efficiency of web service-based
communications... Prasad Yendluri, co-editor of WS-I's Basic Profile and webMethods'
principle architect, said, though, the WS-I yesterday approved inclusion of SOAP
attachments in an incremental release of Basic Profile, version 1.1, to avoid impacting
delivery of 1.0. Yendluri said version 1.1 would be published 'soon after' version 1.0. He

added SOAP attachments were the subject of early debate but confirmed these were
initially discarded from version 1.0. 'There has been a recent re-consideration,' he said
citing member feedback and evolution of version 1.2 of the World Wide Web
Consortium's (W3C's) underlying SOAP specification. The issue, though, is far-from
resolved for small- and medium-size companies who constitute the bulk of WS-I's
membership and clearly feel that their interests are not being properly represented by the
board. The WS-I's nine-member board comprises Accenture, BEA Systems Inc, FujitsuSiemens, Hewlett-Packard Co, Intel Corp, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle Corp and SAP AG..."

[January 23, 2003] "WS-I Second Round Spec Homes In On Security." By Gavin
Clarke [ComputerWire]. In The Register (January 21, 2003). "A Microsoft Corp-backed
industry group is preparing its second set of web services specifications to ensure
interoperability of emerging XML security standards, writes Gavin Clarke. The Web
Services Interoperability (WS-I) organization has created a working group whose task is
to map out potential deliverables for a proposed security specification, called a profile,
that will be based on security standards from other organizations... This will be the WS-I's
second proposed profile, following the Basic Profile Working Draft that is currently in draft
and is scheduled for completion in the second quarter of this year. The first profile
consists of guidelines for how implementations of Simple Object Access Protocol 1.1
(SOAP), Web Services Description Language (WSDL) 1.1, Universal Description,
Discovery and Integration (UDDI) 2.0, XML 1.0 and XML Schema should interoperate.
Security has been identified by many as the next major area for work in web services.
Tom Glover, WS-I president and chairman, told ComputerWire he hoped the preliminary
security working group would complete its work by March then make its
recommendations to the WS-I board. A formal working group would then be established
to develop the profile. The preliminary working group, chaired by Santa Clara, Californiabased Sun Microsystems Inc's Eve Maler can, if it chooses, outline which security
specifications it believes should be used in the profile..."

[December 18, 2002] "Supply Chain Management Use Case Model." Edited by
Scott Anderson (Visuale, Inc.), Martin Chapman (Oracle), Marc Goodner (SAP), Paul
Mackinaw (Accenture), and Rimas Rekasius (IBM). WS-I Working Group Draft. Date:
2002/11/10. 28 pages. ['This is not a final document. This is an interim draft published for
early review and comment.'] "This document presents a high level definition of a Supply
Chain Management (SCM) application in the form of a set of Use Cases. The application
being modeled is that of a Retailer offering Consumer electronic goods to Consumers; a
typical B2C model. To fulfill orders the Retailer has to manage stock levels in
warehouses. When an item in stock falls below a certain threshold, the Retailer must
restock the item from the relevant Manufacturer's inventory (a typical B2B model). In
order to fulfill a Retailer's request a Manufacturer may have to execute a production run to
build the finished goods. In the real world, a Manufacturer would have to order the
component parts from its suppliers. For simplicity in this application, we assume this is a
manual process which is supported through the use of fax. Each use case includes a
logging call to a monitoring system in order to monitor the activities of the services from a

single monitoring service. The primary goal of the application is to demonstrate all of the
scenarios in the WS-I Basic Profile..." [cache]

[October 30, 2002] "WS-I Publishes Basic Profile Working Draft. Now Available
for Public Comment." Announcement 2002-10-29. "Today [2002-10-29] at the Gartner
Group Application Integration and Web Services conference, Tom Glover, chairman of the
Web Services Interoperability Organization ('WS-I') announced the availability of the WS-I
Basic Profile Working Draft. The WS-I Basic Profile Working Group has made this
working draft public in order to solicit feedback from the Web services community, with
the goal of releasing a final version in early 2003. The WS-I Basic Profile Working Draft
can be accessed at www.ws-i.org. 'We've met a major milestone by releasing the working
draft ahead of schedule,' said Glover during his keynote address at the Gartner Group
conference. 'hile the Basic Profile is composed of detailed guidelines aimed at helping
developers build interoperable Web services, we expect that broad adoption of the profile
will provide a level of confidence for executives making investment decisions about Web
services and Web services products.' The Basic Profile consists of implementation
guidelines recommending how a set of core Web services specifications (SOAP 1.1,
WSDL 1.1, UDDI 2.0, XML 1.0 and XML Schema) should be used together to develop
interoperable Web services. The following Web (1) Messaging: the exchange of Web
service protocol elements, usually over a network (2) Description: the enumeration of the
messages associated with a Web service, along with implementation details (3)
Discovery: metadata that enables the advertisement of a Web service's capabilities (4)
Security: mechanisms that provide integrity, privacy, authentication and authorization..."
Details in the news item. [PR source .DOC]

[October 30, 2002] "WS-I Release Profile for Building Web Services." By Paul
Krill. In InfoWorld (October 29, 2002). "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 WSSecurity standard from OASIS, VanRoekel said. 'We're just not there yet. You have to
solve the foundational issues first,' said VanRoekel..." See: (1) the text of the
announcement, "WS-I Publishes Basic Profile Working Draft. Now Available for Public
Comment."; (2) more detailed references in the news item of 2002-10-18: "Web Services
Interoperability Organization Publishes Basic Profile Version 1.0.". [PR source .DOC]

[October 18, 2002] Web Services Interoperability Organization Publishes Basic

Profile Version 1.0. WS-I (Web Services Interoperability Organization) has released a
working group draft specification for WS-I Basic Profile Version 1.0. Produced by the WSI's Basic Profile Working Group, the document defines the WS-I Basic Profile, consisting
of a set of non-proprietary Web services specifications, along with clarifications to those
specifications which promote interoperability. The Basic Profile "dictates how a selected
set of specified Web services technologies should be used together in an interoperable
manner. They are: (1) Messaging -- the exchange of protocol elements, usually over a
network, to effect a Web service; (2) Description -- the enumeration of the messages
associated with a Web service, along with implementation details; (3) Discovery -metadata that enables the advertisement of a Web service's capabilities; (4) Security -mechanisms that provide integrity, privacy, authentication and authorization functions.
The profile mandates the use of a particular technology (or technologies), when
appropriate, for each of these components." [Full context]

[October 18, 2002] "WS-I Community Approves Board Expansion. 150+ Member
Community Votes to Add Two Elected Board Seats. Nominations Set for January 2003." "The Web Services Interoperability Organization ('WS-I') announced 2002-10-17 that its
member community has approved the proposal to expand the board of directors and add
two new elected seats. WS-I contributing members in good standing will be eligible to run
for election. Nominations will be accepted beginning January 1, 2003 and must be
received no later than February 15, 2003. Any company interested in running for board
election will need to join the organization and participate in its work. Elections will take
place in March 2003. The term for the newly elected directors will begin on April 1, 2003...
"WS-I is the most important organization for ensuring that software from different vendors
can communicate using Web services standards," said Ted Schadler, group director of
research at Forrester Research. "The WS-I's important work is to rise above software
industry politics and give CIOs and companies confidence that the software they're
buying conforms with basic conventions of interoperability. Forrester believes that today's
move by the WS-I to allow new members to gain board status will benefit the software
industry and firms that rely on software." WS-I is an open industry organization committed
to promoting consistent and reliable interoperability among Web services across
platforms, applications and programming languages. The organization unites a diverse
community of Web services companies by providing guidance, recommended practices

and supporting resources for developing interoperable Web services. Since its formation
in February 2002, more than 150 companies have joined WS-I..." [source .DOC, PDF]

[October 17, 2002] "WS-I to Expand Its Board." By Stephen Lawson. In InfoWorld
(October 17, 2002). "The Web Services Interoperability Organization (WS-I) said
Thursday [2002-10-17] will add two seats to its board of directors, a move that may help
heal a rift between the group and Sun Microsystems. The group of more than 150
companies, formed in February to foster interoperability of Web services software from
different companies, Thursday announced it will elect two new board members next
March. The member companies will be elected by the full membership and will have the
same rights and responsibilities as the current nine board members, but they will serve
limited terms. The nine current board members, including Microsoft and IBM, are
permanent. The board expansion was proposed in June and has now been approved by
the board's membership. The news brought a guarded welcome from Sun, based in
Santa Clara, Calif., which in the past had indicated it wanted to be brought into the group
as a permanent board member. WS-I expects to release by the end of this year a set of
guidelines for how to use Web services standards in an interoperable way, a set of tools
developers can use to test their software, and sample Web services applications. The
new board seats were created to let more member companies participate in guiding the
organization, said Rob Cheng, chairman of the marketing and communications committee
of WS-I. The board is responsible for maintaining the goals and objectives of the
organization and creating new working groups, which tackle particular issues, he said.
Nominations will be accepted from Jan. 1, 2003 through Feb. 15, 2003. The new board
seats will be open to any company that has been a member of WS-I for at least 90 days
and belonged to at least one of its working groups for 60 days, Cheng said..."

[October 03, 2002] "Free WS-I Interoperability Tests Due in 2002." By Paul Krill.
In InfoWorld (October 03, 2002). "Interoperability tests for Web services, to gauge the
compatibility of different implementations, will be available for free from the Web Services
Interoperability (WS-I) organization by the end of this year, said an Oracle official
Thursday. Specifically, WS-I will provide tools to test the conformity of Web services to
basic profiles, said Rob Cheng, Oracle senior product manager of Oracle9i Application
Server and co-chairman of the WS-I marketing communications committee. Cheng spoke
of the WS-I plan during the Web Services Edge 2002 conference here on Thursday. If a
Web service passes the WS-I test, 'It means it's compatible with any other Web service,'
conforming to the profile, which will feature specifications such as UDDI and SOAP,
Cheng said. Also to be released by WS-I is a set of best practices for interoperability and
use case scenarios, Cheng said. Supply chain is one specific sample application to be
released by WS-I, to test for attributes such as asynchronous communications between a
manufacturer and a warehouse, said Cheng. Users can download the tools and test
applications, according to Cheng... WS-I does expect users who have passed the
compatibility tests to post results in a public place, he said. The only time users will have
to sign an agreement to use the tests is if they want to integrate them into an interactive
development environment, Cheng said..." See: "Web Services Interoperability
Organization (WS-I)."


[August 28, 2002] "Standardizing Web Services Nears Completion." By Darryl K.
Taft. In eWEEK (August 28, 2002). "The effort to standardize the Web services arena is
but six to nine months from completion, but the work necessary to implement all the
standards to create a totally services-oriented architecture is at least a year to two years
away, according to one IBM executive. Robert Sutor, IBM's director of e-business
standards strategy, demonstrated at the XML Web Services One conference here
interoperability between an IBM WebSphere-based Web services system and a Microsoft
Corp. .Net Web services system. The scenario included a client, a brokerage house and
trade desks at an institution, where each point was able to swap code between
WebSphere and .Net. 'The demo showed the degree to which WebSphere and .Net could
interoperate on a standard level,' Sutor said. The demonstration used the SOAP (Simple
Object Access Protocol), WSDL (Web Services Description Language), WS-Security and
WS-Attachments... There is still work to be done on Web services security, but the recent
move of the WS-Security specification into the OASIS standards organization should help
to move that forward, according to Sutor. Indeed, he said, business processing, workflow,
transactions and systems management are going to be big areas for the future. 'We'll be
spending the next couple of years in standards organizations finalizing these things,'
Sutor said. 'The standardization work will continue, but for the big picture we've only got
six to nine months on this.' ... Meanwhile, Sutor said the Web Services Interoperability
organization, which IBM founded with Microsoft, BEA Systems Inc. and other companies,
has played a crucial role already in the Web services arena. 'With WS-I there's much
better liaison between OASIS and the W3C..."

[August 26, 2002] "WS-I Sorts Out Web Services Specs." By Darryl K. Taft. In
eWEEK (August 26, 2002). "With the number of Web services standards becoming an
alphabet soup, enterprises are looking for assurance that the myriad specifications are
interoperable. The Web Services Interoperability organization, or WS-I, is taking steps to
help. The WS-I recently finished an internal version of its first set of guidelines -- or
profiles -- called WSBasic, designed to assist enterprises in developing and running Web
services. The beta version is scheduled for release in November, with general availability
expected by the end of the year. The group, formed in February by Microsoft Corp., IBM,
BEA Systems Inc., Intel Corp. and others, also wants to play a broker role for the various
competing standards bodies, in particular the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and
the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS)...
Another key to standards interoperability is cooperation among the major standards
groups. At the XML Web Services One Conference in Boston this week, the W3C and
OASIS will discuss security standards for Web services. WS-I representatives said their
group's profiles will give the standards bodies a middle ground to work around. The WS-I
profiles are Web services specifications at specific version levels that include outlines
about how they work together, according to Rob Cheng, a WS-I co-chairman and senior
IPlatform product analyst at Oracle Corp., in Redwood Shores, Calif. WSBasic includes
the core Web services specifications: XML Schema 1.0, SOAP (Simple Object Access
Protocol) 1.1, WSDL (Web Services Description Language) 1.1 and UDDI (Universal
Description, Discovery and Integration) 2.0... Available with the alpha version of WSBasic
are sample applications used to demonstrate Web services interoperating on various

platforms -- including Windows, Solaris and Linux -- and tools to analyze and test
interoperability, said John Kiger, director of Web services technologies at BEA, in San
Jose, Calif., and a WS-I board member. Sample applications and testing tools will be
beefed up as profiles evolve. WSBasic will be the building block for profiles that will
include other standards, such as WS-Transaction and WS-Security, Cheng said.
Additional profiles will address issues such as message extensibility, routing, correlation,
guaranteed message exchange, signatures, encryption, transactions, process flow and
inspection. The development of additional or updated WS-I profiles depends on the
continued maturity of Web services specifications, Cheng said. WS-I representatives said
they expect that vertical industries will build on the WS-I profiles by adding industryspecific standards to them..."

[August 20, 2002] "F5 Joins the Web Services Interoperability Organization." - F5
Networks, Inc., leading provider of Internet Traffic Management (ITM) products, today
"announced it is the first ITM vendor to join the Web Services Interoperability
Organization (WS-I) to help influence and establish emerging standards for Web
services. F5 shares WS-I's vision of promoting open standards for Web services
interoperability, and is the only networking vendor to offer a fully integrated suite of ITM
products that are Web services-enabled via F5's open iControl Application Programming
Interface (API). 'We're excited to have F5 Networks join WS-I and welcome their
participation in the various working groups,' said Tom Glover, chairman of WS-I. 'The goal
of true interoperability can only be achieved with the participation of companies from a
diverse set of industries. F5's participation will help to ensure that the deliverables WS-I
produce will meet the real-world interoperability needs of businesses.' To successfully
deploy Web services and mitigate the risks associated with these new applications, it is
crucial that the application and network work in concert to avoid challenges with the
availability, scalability, and security of mission-critical deployments. F5 Networks is the
only networking vendor that enables applications and web services to 'speak to' and
influence the behavior of the underlying global network via F5's open iControl architecture
and API; accessible via SOAP/XML and CORBA interfaces to suit a variety of application
requirements. Through iControl, each F5 networking device is a Web service provider
and consumer offering comprehensive programmatic interfaces exposed via Web
Services Description Language (WSDL). Through support for WSDL and SOAP/XML,
iControl enables applications to monitor critical network information and combine it with
application health and performance to adjust both application and network behavior for
optimized scalability, availability, and performance. Further, support for Microsoft .NET
and J2EE development platforms enables developers to leverage this API with familiar
tools, speeding development and deployment..."

[July 29, 2002] "Vignette Joins WS-I, Adds Web Services To Content, Commerce
Mix." By Richard Karpinski. In InternetWeek (July 29, 2002). "Vignette said Monday it has
joined the Web Services Interoperability Organization (WS-I), hoping to lend its expertise
in content management and e-commerce to the effort to standardize an approach to
emerging XML-based applications. The WS-I organization is large and growing; the group
counts more than 125 companies among its members. WS-I is aiming to develop

implementation tools, guidelines, best practices, and online resources to help enterprises
deploy Web services in the real world... Vignette is increasingly baking Web services
support into its V6 content management and commerce platform. The product currently
includes support for the XML Schema, Web Services Definition Language (WSDL),
Universal Description Discovery and Integration (UDDI), and Simple Object Access
Protocol (SOAP) standards. V6 also spans both J2EE and .Net platforms. Vignette said it
plans to join the WSBasic Profile working group, which is defining how to use standards
like SOAP, WSDL, and UDDI as a foundation for Web services..." See details in the 200207-29 announcement "Vignette Joins Web Services Interoperability Organization.
Vignette Supports Effort to Establish Greater Compatibility of Web Services Across
Technologies and Applications."

[June 17, 2002] "Web Services Interoperability Standards: Accelerating Web

Services Adoption." By Chris Kurt (Microsoft). May 15, 2002. Based on 14 slides.
Presentation to the XML.gov XML Working Group. "The shift to Web services is
underway [An Internet-native distributed computing model based on XML standards has
emerged; Early implementations are solving problems today and generating future
requirements; The Web services standards stack is increasing in size and complexity to
match functionality requirements]. The fundamental characteristic of Web services is
interoperability [Assumes consistency across platforms, applications, and programming
languages]. What is needed? (1) Guidance [Implementation guidance and support for
Web services adoption; A common definition for Web services] (2) Interoperability
[Across platforms, applications, and programming languages; Consistent, reliable
interoperability between Web services technologies from multiple vendors; A standards
integrator to help Web services advance in a structured, coherent manner]..." Available
also in HTML and PPT formats.

[May 16, 2002] "IBM Web Services Guru Predicts WSDL Future." By Gavin
Clarke. In Computerwire (May 16, 2002). Also printed in The Register. "... IBM's director
of e-Business standards Bob Sutor, predicts between 20 and 25 XML-based
specifications for web services will eventually be defined by standards bodies like OASIS
and the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). The good part? ISVs and customers are
unlikely to implement all 25. Instead developers will mix and match, picking specifications
to suit specific needs. WSDL will be the most widely adopted specification, to describe
web services. On this latter specification, Sutor is emphatic: web services are defined by
whether they are described in WSDL. 'Web services will be fundamentally WSDL based.
You have to use WSDL to describe [a web service] and then you can build up from there,'
Sutor said. 'There will be a tremendous amount of use for SOAP... but there may be a
more optimized protocol.' Sutor believes the Web Services Interoperability (WS-I)
Organization will help clear-up confusion over the remaining specifications. Sutor said
WS-I will help to ensure interoperability between vendor's implementations of standards.
WS-I will also corral groups of standards to suit specific functions, such as security. 'Once
standards get implemented you get a different perspective of what you should have and
what should have been settled, as people mix and match parts of a paper specification.

That's where WS-I can contribute. The raw list of standards is just ammunition," he
said..."

[April 18, 2002] "WS-I Announces Formation of Key Working Groups;

Membership Grows to More Than 100. 100+ Member Community Meets for Initial
Working Group Planning Sessions. AT&T, Proctor & Gamble, Sabre and Others Join
Industry Effort." - "The Web Services Interoperability Organization ('WS-I')
(http://www.ws-i.org) announced the formation of key working groups at the organization's
first community meeting held this week in San Francisco. WS-I is an open industry
organization committed to promoting consistent and reliable interoperability among Web
services across platforms, applications and programming languages. More than 100
companies have joined WS-I since its official launch in February 2002... Working Group
Charters Defined: WS-I has defined the charters for three initial working groups. (1) The
Basic Web Services Profile Working Group will identify a core set of specifications
(including XML Schema, SOAP, WSDL and UDDI) that provide the foundation for Web
services, and will establish conventions and recommendations for coordinating their use.
(2) The Sample Applications Working Group will provide sample applications of basic
Web services to accelerate deployments. These sample applications illustrate best
practices for implementation and will be developed in multiple programming languages
using multiple development tools. Sample applications serve as working examples for
companies planning to implement Web services. (3) The Test Materials and Tools
Development Working Group will develop a suite of self-administered tests to verify
conformance with the Basic Web Services Profile. These tools and materials can be used
to ensure that Web services interoperate across platforms, applications and programming
languages. WS-I is targeting a Fall release for the first set of working group deliverables...
Membership in WS-I is open to all organizations committed to promoting interoperability
among Web services based on industry-accepted definitions and open standards
support..."

[April 18, 2002] "Web Services Body Adds 50 Members." By Wylie Wong. In
CNET News.com (April 17, 2002). "AT&T, Cisco Systems, and Procter & Gamble are
among the latest companies to join a key Web services standards organization aimed at
promoting the emerging technology. The Web Services Interoperability Organization (WSI) said Thursday that it has gained 50 new members, bringing its total membership to
more than 100 companies. The organization's stated goal is to promote Web services
and ensure that software from various technology makers is compatible. The group,
created by IBM and Microsoft in February, is meeting for the first time this week in San
Francisco to sketch out its objectives. In the next few years, analysts expect Web services
to gain in popularity as a more efficient way to build software. Web services allows
businesses with different computing systems to more easily interact and conduct
transactions. But analysts and technology buyers warn that Web services won't catch on
industrywide unless there is a widely accepted way of linking systems. In a two-day
meeting that began Wednesday, organizers say, the WS-I has come up with three initial
tasks and has created teams, or 'working groups,' to accomplish them by this fall, said
Norbert Mikula, Intel's director of Web services technology and co-chair of WS-I's

marketing committee. One team will identify the key specifications for Web services,
including Extensible Markup Language (XML), the Simple Object Access Protocol
(SOAP), Web Services Description Language (WSDL), and Universal Description,
Discovery and Integration (UDDI). It also will create the guidelines for using them to
ensure compatibility, Mikula said. Those four specifications have emerged as key to
making Web services work across multiple computing systems. To understand how these
protocols work together, imagine an ordinary phone call. In Web services parlance, XML
represents the conversation, SOAP describes the rules for how to call someone, and
UDDI is the phone book. WSDL describes what the phone call is about and how you can
participate... Still missing from the WS-I's list of supporters is Sun Microsystems... new
members joining the WS-I include Hitachi, Unisys, Ascential Software, Bowstreet, Corel
and SilverStream Software. Companies that originally joined included Compaq Computer,
DaimlerChrysler, United Airlines and VeriSign..."

[April 12, 2002] "Market Scan: WS Interop Board Treads a Fine Line." By Paul
Kapustka. In XML & Web Services Magazine Volume 3, Number 3 (April/May 2002),
pages 12-13. Earlier version posted February 19, 2002. ['Will the recent formation of
some industry heavyweights into one consortium bode well for progress in cross-platform
standards?'] "Will the new Web Services Interoperability (WS-I) Organization have greater
success than earlier open-systems efforts that flashed and then fizzled? While there
might be cause for skepticism, the recent history of agreements in the Web services
arena suggests that further progress in cross-platform standards may be possible. Billing
their creation as a 'standards integrator' for the Web services marketplace, a large group
of vendors and enterprise customers -- including IBM, Microsoft, and Oracle but not Sun
Microsystems -- announced the formation of the WS-I Organization, a group meant to
'accelerate the development and deployment' of interoperable Web services. According to
WS-I representatives, the group's main goal is to give guidance and reassurance to
potential Web services developers and customers who may be hesitant to buy into the
marketing claims already being attached to the various Web services product
bandwagons. The WS-I also said it will not attempt to develop standards, but will instead
endorse and encourage the efforts of existing standards groups... Bob Sutor, director for
e-business standards strategy with IBM, said the WS-I's work will be crucial once Web
services technologies move past the basic connection levels of Simple Object Access
Protocol (SOAP), XML, Web Services Description Language (WSDL), and Universal
Description, Discovery, and Integration (UDDI) to include thornier topics like security and
transaction support... Gartner's Natis, however, thinks the WS-I may be reaching too high
with its stated plans for developing a technology 'road map,' or a list of productinteroperability profiles and 'best practices' for Web services deployment... The WS-I
could prove useful, Natis said, if its members were able to reach a consensus on
standards that do emerge in functional areas like security and transaction support, where
there isn't the current level of agreement found for the basic communication technologies
like SOAP and XML."

[March 20, 2002] WS-I Member meeting 2002-04-17/18. A posting of 2002-03-18

from Christopher Kurt (Secretariat, ws-i.org) announced that the first Web Services

Interoperability Organization (WS-I) Member meeting "will be held in the San Francisco
area on Wednesday and Thursday, April 17th and 18th, 2002. [members-only event,
limited space] Contact:

[March 13, 2002] "WS-I: Trying to Rise Above the Fray." By Michael Vizard and
Steve Gillmor. In InfoWorld (March 12, 2002). ['As the standoff between Sun
Microsystems and the founders of the WS-I (Web Services Interoperability Organization)
looks like it's about to become a prolonged debate, executives from IBM and Microsoft in
a rare joint public relations effort are making their case for WS-I. Sun insists that it should
be given a position on the organization's board of directors because that is where the
organization's agenda will be determined. The founders of the organization don't
necessarily agree, given Sun's historic foot-dragging on XML and Web services in
general. In an interview with InfoWorld Editor in Chief Michael Vizard and Test Center
Director Steve Gillmor, Bob Sutor, IBM director of e-business standards strategy, and Neil
Charney, Microsoft director of .Net platform strategy, claim that the organization's primary
goal is to promote Web services interoperability rather than industry turmoil.'] [Charney:]
"The first thing to note is that WS-I is not a standards body. Think of it as an organization
that's really a standards integrator. From the perspective of a developer who's building
Web services, as these things start to really move out into production, the specifications
are being generated by a variety of standards bodies. So it's important to have a place for
developers to go where a circle has been drawn around the various standards that are
out there for this thing called Web services. It's really an implementor's forum, if anything.
It's really an attempt to respond to customers telling us that they want to have some
sense of confidence that the interoperability of Web services can be assured. The thing
they've made very clear is that they want to see leadership and they want to see the
various industry leaders align around a shared and common definition of Web services.
Customers are looking for guidance and clarity, because there are a variety of standards
efforts and standards bodies, and there's a tendency in our industry to not even have the
conversation." [Sutor:] "We're not going to put 25 standards all in the W3C or in OASIS.
There needs to be some sort of central industry community that helps to make sense of
all that... Some subset of every community is always concerned with something. We went
out with 55 companies supporting WS-I. There were in fact nine founders, including
Oracle, who has done a little bit in the Java community, as well as BEA. We really went
out of our way to make sure that we could get a lot of companies in there, and we invited
a tremendous number of them. Sun will have to make up its mind about this. Sun is more
than welcome. We are working our way through this list of 400-plus inquiries..."

[March 11, 2002] "Are Politics Eclipsing Sun from the Web Services Scene?" By
Eric Knorr and David Berlind. In ZDNet AnchorDesk (March 11, 2002). "A month ago,
Microsoft and IBM formed the Web Services Interoperability (WS-I) organization, an
industry consortium dedicated to promoting best practices for Web services. It's hard to
overstate the WS-I's importance -- mainly because it's the first major industry
organization devoted to Web services and boasts dozens of titans as members, including
Accenture, BEA Systems, Compaq, Ford, Fujitsu, Hewlett-Packard, Oracle, Qwest, SAP,
United Airlines, and VeriSign. More practically, the WS-I is important because ensuring

that Web services interoperate and conform to standards is absolutely vital. If they don't -and Web services enablers or providers factionalize -- the whole proposition falls apart.
Too bad the WS-I has already gotten off on the wrong foot. The reason: Sun
Microsystems hasn't joined yet -- and the circumstances surrounding its absence smack
of hardball politics. Although Bill Gates derided Sun for not signing on during his February
13 introduction of Microsoft's Visual Studio.Net, Sun was invited to join just days before-and then, according to Sun, only as a contributor, not as a board member or founder. In
fact, Sun was only informed of the WS-I's existence by IBM on the evening of February 4
(see Web services push attracts a crowd) -- nine days before Gates's comments, and
within 48 hours of the WS-I's February 6 launch. That's hardly enough time to do the
necessary due diligence when a chief competitor approaches you about joining an
industry group, let alone enough time for competitors to credibly rattle their sabers...
According to Sun spokesperson Russell Castronovo, Sun sent the WS-I a request to
become a board member three weeks ago and still hasn't received a response... The
WS-I is reportedly holding its first board meeting this week..."

[March 08, 2002] "Tale of Two Rodneys." By Steve Gillmor. In InfoWorld Volume
24, Issue 10 (March 08, 2002), page 66. "... Ed Julson, Sun director of product
management Java and XML technologies, told InfoWorld that WS-I 'is the exact opposite
approach to the way standards should be developed.' Rather than submitting ideas or
early technologies that may or may not be collectively tuned or even completely
transformed into standards from where the technology emerges, Julson suggested
Microsoft and IBM are developing the technology themselves then trying to push that
through the standards body, more or less intact. Julson says WS-I goes a long way
backward to proprietary technologies disguised as standards. Rich Green, Sun vice
president and general manager Java software and XML technologies, sees it differently.
'Ed works in this organization and he's certainly entitled to his opinion. I'm in charge of
defining Sun's strategy and approach with respect to [WS-I], so I'm giving you the actual
Sun answer.' Green is supportive of WS-I, or at least a WS-I that includes Sun. 'If we
have any concern at all, it is in fact whether or not the mandate that [WS-I] has defined for
itself is broad and stringent enough to ensure interoperability. We do have some
questions about the model of self-certification, and we're concerned that this body, if it's
going to take out this piece of industry real estate, that it actually has enough teeth to
ensure interoperability..."

[March 05, 2002] "It Starts with Standards: Laying Groundwork for the Next
Generation of Innovation." Microsoft Presspass Feature Story. March 05, 2002. "...
'Companies today are recognizing and supporting the tremendous potential of XML
systems to unify the computing landscape, [Christopher] Kurt [group program manager
for Web services at Microsoft] says. 'If this trend continues, the next generation of
technologies can truly take shape in an interoperable world. But the standards process
hasn't always lived up to its altruistic intentions, Kurt acknowledges. 'The standards
process typically involves a lot of negotiation and compromise to address multiple goals,
and in those negotiations, features and options are often introduced to specifications that
may not be needed,' he says. According to Kurt, some of these features may be

underdefined, or may simply be redundant, duplicating functionality already in place. This

can occur for trivial aspects of the specifications or very complex features. 'And to the
extent that it occurs, while it may be good for moving specifications forward and reaching
broad agreement, it doesn't really help customers in the long run, and it doesn't help us
build interoperable solutions.' Enter the new Web Services Interoperability Organization
(WS-I). Launched in February, WS-I aims to cut through some of the clutter and help the
industry and its numerous standards bodies focus on more precisely defining protocols to
enable the true interoperability that Web services will require. 'Ideally it should be
possible to buy Web services technology from two vendors and have it work together out
of the box,' Kurt says. 'But the way specifications are written today, there's not enough
guidance for that to happen naturally. They're not precise enough. What WS-I aims to do
is work across all of the standards organizations to help the industry get there as quickly
as we can.' Kurt says that WS-I will function as a standards integrator, a touchpoint
among all of the standards organizations that provides feedback about how the standards
can be improved, which practices the industry is gravitating toward, which have proven
most interoperable, and new requirements that need to be addressed. 'Some of the
industry organizations are structured to have very strong internal consistency in what they
do,' he says. 'But others are structured in such a way that it generally ensures they won't
have consistency, and none of them are really structured to check their work with that of
other organizations. WS-I provides a view across the dynamic array of standards
organizations to help our customers figure out how all of these standards are going to
work together.' It's an idea that apparently has many supporters in the high-tech
community. In just a few weeks, WS-I has over 50 members, and has received requests
from more than 400 additional companies around the world interested in participating.
Many feel that WS-I represents the best of what the standards movement has to offer -- a
truly egalitarian, democratic and community-oriented approach to clearing the hurdles
along the path to interoperability..."

[March 05, 2002] "IBM Spells Out Web Services Strategy." By Rob Wright. In
CMP VARBusiness (March 04, 2002). "Feeling the heat in the Web services market from
top competitors such as BEA Systems, Oracle and Sun Microsystems, IBM on Monday
highlighted its own Web services strategy, positioning itself firmly in between the
competing Java and .Net standards while declaring that it is the true market leader in the
emerging market. Officials from IBM Software Group and IBM Global Services, along with
IBM software brands Lotus and Tivoli, fleshed out Big Blue's overall approach to Web
services, one that focuses on open standards and support of both Java-based Web
services and Microsoft's .Net platform. Most of the attention, however, was focused on
IBM's middleware brands, specifically the WebSphere platform and application server, as
the key to driving growth and adoption of Web services in the enterprise market. IBM
officials say the company will invest $700 million in WebSphere this year, which grew
rapidly in 2001 and gained significant market share against BEA's WebLogic application
server, which was the market leader last year... To offer such a high degree of
connectivity through WebSphere, IBM has rolled out support of all major technologies
and Internet standards, which has been a key selling point for Big Blue's Web services
push. IBM has been a major contributor to Java, J2EE and UDDI and offers strong

support for XML, SOAP, WSDL -- even .Net. While IBM and Microsoft have two distinct
and separate Web services strategies and product lines, the technology giants teamed up
recently to form the Web Services Interoperability Organization (WS-I), a group focused
on developing interoperable standards to connect multiple platforms, applications and
programming languages. Accenture, Intel, BEA, Hewlett-Packard and Oracle are also
members of WS-I. 'The world is heterogeneous,' says Robert Sutor, director of e-business
standards strategy at IBM. 'If customers buy our software and they can't communicate
with Microsoft, BEA and other competitors, we fail.' IBM, however, will be walking a fine
line with Microsoft. While Big Blue has attacked such threats as BEA, Sun and Oracle,
the company is restrained with Microsoft because it sees opportunity around .Net,
Microsoft's proprietary Web services platform. IBM officials say they're concentrating on
getting Microsoft to support open standards, and it has worked to a degree. Along with
forming WS-I, the two companies worked together on developing SOAP... IBM also
pointed out that Java is the more popular technology for enterprises buying Web services.
In addition, the company cited a recent survey from analyst firm Giga Information Group
that showed 32 percent of customers say WebSphere is the most important Web services
platform, compared with 22 percent for Microsoft .Net. Going forward, IBM says it will
concentrate on developing standards with WS-I, which the company says has had
membership inquiries from more than 450 companies, and offering solution providers and
software developers more resources and support through its partner program and new
partner initiative, WebServices on WebSphere..."

[March 01, 2002] "The State of Web Services." Interview with Bob Sutor (IBM).
By Ellie MacIsaac (Assistant Managing Editor, WebSphere Advisor). In [XML Strategies]
Advisor (February 28, 2002). ['Advisor recently spoke with IBM director of e-business
standards strategy Bob Sutor about current trends in Web services adoption, and the
standards integration work being done by the Web Services Interoperability Organization
(WS-I).'] "The Web Services Interoperability Organization (WS-I) is based on providing
guidance and clarity both for the developers and the people making investment decisions.
They need to know that the products, such as the tools, the runtime, and the Web
services themselves are based on open standards. They also need to know which open
standards the developers used, and if they used common industry practices to put them
together. We want our customers to have the confidence to say, 'Alright, I can use that
Web service. I know that will be compliant with what I already have.' We think that
confidence will really speed up the adoption of Web services. We all agree Web services
is a good idea -- it's hard to argue against it. Therefore, we want to get this technology
into our customers' systems as quickly as possible, but they want the reassurance it'll do
the job. They want to know that all these promises of interoperability are more than just
marketing hype -- that this notion of interoperability is something they can concretely see
and measure... We've started doing some preliminary work over the last year around the
basic standards such as SOAP and WSDL, which are the basic ways for describing Web
services. This organization's timing is very important. We think we're about to enter a
period where there will be many more technologies coming into the standardization
process. I mentioned some before -- security, reliability, and transactions -- but there are
several more. So, we're at the point where the foundation for Web services, in terms of

the basic connectivity, has been laid. We've clearly been talking about Web services a lot,
and people at least have a vague idea of what Web services are. We want to make sure
now that when we move off the basic platform for all the future standardization efforts that
will take place in the different organizations, that interoperability is built in -- that it's a
requirement from now on to make sure the standard coming from one place will work with
the standard coming from another place. There are just too many different specifications
to be handling them all in one place. The W3C will not do them all; OASIS will not do
them all; same with the OMG, or any of the other big organizations. So, it's assumed that
this standardization work will be done in a distributed way. So, we need a central
organization, like WS-I, that's neutral and isn't affiliated with any of these organizations,
and therefore isn't involved in any of the existing cross-organization politics. We're also
neutral regarding programming languages; we don't say you have to do Web services
with Java or C# or .NET. So, WS-I is an appropriately neutral industry body that can drive
forward the roadmap for Web services to work in a complementary fashion with the
standards organizations and finally make this notion of interoperability real..." [fcCG]

[February 26, 2002] "WS-I to Thrash Out Six-Month Timetable." By Simon

Robinson [Special to searchWebServices]. February 26, 2002. "Following a high-profile
launch at the beginning of February backed by 55 industry vendors, the Web Services
Interoperability Organization (WS-I) says it has already received over 400 separate
inquiries about joining the group. The WS-I will convene for its first board meeting next
week, when the nine founding members, along with an expected 100 or so participants,
will thrash out the initial agenda and timetable. According to Bob Sutor, director of IBM's
e-business standards strategy, the organization expects to issue its first set of guidelines
for the implementation of 'basic' Web services within six months. However, despite
describing itself as a body dedicated to customer education, awareness and adoption,
Sutor says the WS-I will not be a certification or policing body for Web services...
Announced on the February 7, the WS-I is a Microsoft- and IBM-led group that aims to
help turn the considerable Web services hype into implementations that work regardless
of the software platforms they are running on. Unlike other Web-based collaboration
efforts, the building blocks of Web services -- XML, SOAP, UDDI and WSDL -- are
supported by all major software vendors and, working in conjunction with standards
bodies such as the W3C, OASIS and the IETF, the WS-I plans to advance the adoption of
Web services by concentrating wholly on interoperability issues..."

[February 07, 2002] "Can We Really Harmonize Web Services?" By David Smith
and Yefim Natis (Gartner Analysts). Gartner Viewpoint. February 7, 2002. "The Web
Services Interoperability Organization, a consortium formed by several major informationtechnology vendors, seeks to address an essential issue surrounding Web services: the
promotion of a set of standards enabling Web services to interoperate. However, the new
consortium faces a number of significant hurdles, including dealing with various
standards bodies as well as managing the threat of eventual vendor or user apathy.
Without adequately addressing these and other political challenges, the group could fade
into obscurity by the end of 2003. On the other hand, even with its limitations (a limited
budget and as of yet no participation by Sun Microsystems), Gartner believes that the

group can help boost Web services for the following reasons: (1) The group will bridge
the gap between Microsoft and the 'Java community' through the participation of BEA
Systems, Hewlett-Packard, IBM and Oracle. The organization will act as a 'standard
integrator,' therefore bringing some coherence to the effort carried out concurrently by the
W3C (World Wide Web Consortium), OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of
Structured Information Standards), OAG (Open Applications Group) and other informal
groups. (2) In addition to overcoming political differences, the promotion of uniform
standards involving security and transactions will remain a challenge. (3) Powerful
vendors such as BEA, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle and SAP will work to establish what Web
services will and will not be. (4) The group will help educate the market in Web services
and help implement best practices. (5) If the group succeeds and collects enough support
and membership, it could emerge as the de facto standards body for Web services..."