Microsoft, IBM, BEA Deliver Specs To Take Web Services To Next Level

By Richard Karpinski

IBM, Microsoft, and new partner BEA Systems Friday said they've created three specifications that add new enterprise-class capabilities to the Web services stack.

The technologies that make up what is typically called Web services are expanding. The first three specs are Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP), Web Services Description Language (WSDL), and Universal Description, Discovery and Integration (UDDI).

Those technologies define connectivity, interface, and "lookup" standards for distributed XML-based application development and integration.

On top of that, Microsoft, IBM, and VeriSign recently forward WS-Security, a set of technologies for helping to add security and authentication to Web services. The three vendors recently sent that spec to the OASIS standards body. Microsoft and IBM also outlined a longer-term road map for fleshing out more functionality for Web Services.

This week's releases begin to move that vision to reality. The three new specs include:

• WS-Coordination gives developers a way to manage control operations that span multiple, interoperable Web services.. Coordination involves the sequencing of events in a process to reach an agreement on an overall outcome of a business process, the vendors said.

• WS-Transaction allows business to monitor the success and failure of each transaction in a Web service. Transactionality is a must-have for many enterprise applications, which simply can't afford the looser environment that governs how most Web sites, and now Web services, operate. Together, WS-Coordination and WS-Transaction can ensure that complex, multifaceted Web services perform as expected.

• Finally, BPEL4WS is an XML-based flow language that defines how business processes interact. The spec allows developers to describe complex business processes that can span multiple companies, such as order processing or lead management, the vendors said. The awkwardly named BPEL4WS replaces existing specs including IBM's Web Services Flow Language (WSFL) and Microsoft's XLANG.

  The next step for the trio of vendors would be to move these specs into a standards body, most likely the OASIS group.