No Boundaries too Big

The W3C defines Web services as a software system designed to support
interoperable machine-to-machine interaction over a network. Used primarily as a
means for businesses to communicate with each other and with clients, Web
services allow organizations to communicate data without intimate knowledge of
each others IT systems behind the firewall.

The Webopedia describes the term as a standardized way of integrating
Web-based applications using the XML, SOAP, WSDL, and UDDI open standards over
an Internet protocol backbone. XML is used to tag the data, SOAP is used to
transfer the data, WSDL is used to describe the services available, and UDDI is
used for listing whatever services are available. Web services technologies
provide a language-neutral, environment-neutral programming model that
accelerates application integration inside and outside the enterprise.

Research agency Radicati has reported that in 2004 the market for Web
services solutions, management, integration, and security reached $950 mn, and
will grow to nearly $6.2 bn by end of 2008.

The Journey

Over the years, there have been a lot of debates over open standards and
proprietary technologies promoted by prominent players in the industry. Sun
Microsystems was the first to try and solve the problem of Web services through
the Sun OpenNet environment, way back in 2002. Microsoft also attempted this
with the .Net by launching new versions every year but compatibility issues
still existed.

Accenture, BEA Systems, Fujitsu, HP, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Oracle, and SAP
came together in 2003 to form Web Services Interoperability Organization (WS-I)
to speed development and deployment of Web services; provide support and a
roadmap for developers and customers.

Upcoming Trends

RESTful Web services have been regaining popularity. These also meet the W3C
definition, and are often better integrated with HTTP than SOAP-based services.

To improve interoperability of Web services, WS-I has been publishing
profiles and is currently building on specifications, generally referred to as
WS-*, to extend Web services capabilities. One of the most crucial
specifications of WS-*, WS-Security, is a communications protocol providing a
means for applying end-to-end security to Web services. Originally developed by
IBM, Microsoft, and VeriSign the protocol is now officially called WSS and
developed via committee in OASIS-Open.

Active Participation

Recently, IBM set up WS-Security for signing data to and from its IBM
WebSphere Message Broker. Sun has also introduced Project Glassfish that will
replace the Java Web Services Developer Pack. Sun is also offering its cloud
computing products and has announced that OpenSolaris will now work with the
popular Amazon Web services hosting, called Elastic Compute Cloud (or EC2).

Microsoft also launched its new version of .NET 3.5 this year. Oracle is
already working closely with W3C and is already a major participant in UDDI as
well as SOAP efforts. BEA Systems has also released three Web services
specifications that have been issued as royalty-free specifications supporting
asynchrony, reliable messaging, and general message data.

Going forward, for the Web services protocols to be interoperable across
diverse systems and suitable for serious applications, standards bodies such as
W3C, OASIS, and WS-I must formally standardize these protocols. The future trend
is greatly swinging toward a single, unified programming model supporting
different scenarios, in turn providing a developer experience that is consistent
for service design, configuration and deployment.

Priya Kekre

priyak@cybermedia.co.in