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Follow UsGo back in time by a couple of years. Think of early 2002: one of the hottest
areas in technology arena used to be Web services. It sort of coincided with the
hype Microsoft created around its .NET technology; the Redmond giant had sort of
succeeded in making .NET synonymous with Web services. But not just Microsoft,
marketing pashas of all other big-ticket vendors like IBM, Sun, HP, BEA Systems,
and Oracle were singing paeans on Web services; consultants were going gung-ho
over the next big wave in computing; even media were doing their bit to
accentuate the hype. Enterprises the world over, India included, were exploring
means of how and when they needed to embrace Web services.
Fast forward to 2005: Web services still does not have significant numbers to
show in terms of actual adoption by enterprises, the hype has waned down
considerably with most CIOs now viewing it as an esoteric technology-to be
discussed but not adopted. Even the vendors are cautious in their predictions
about the immediate future of Web services. In India there are hardly any sample
case studies showcasing Web services' adoption. One rare instance is the
Andhra Pradesh government whose citizen centric portals like eSeva and AP Online
are connecting to the back-end services like Hyderabad Water Billing systems or
statewide Bus Service systems through Web services. Even in this case, currently
the applications are being developed, while actual deployment would take a few
months. There have been a host of issues that have not let Web services gather
as much steam as was expected in 2002, if not totally retarded its growth in the
nascent stage.
What is the right word?
The most basic one has been that notwithstanding the hype, no clear
definition has emerged on what exactly constitutes Web services. Different
connotations and interpretations by multiple vendors have only added to the
confusion. Everyone agrees that the term "Web services" refers to a
new set of flexible application building blocks that let companies exchange data
easily between dissimilar systems. But that is where the agreement ends; the
rest appears to be a mass of confusion. Sometimes the technology is said to be
as simple as basic browser-based services-a single request by a PC in
Bangalore for a currency conversion from a server in Orlando, for instance.
Sometimes it is described as sophisticated communications links between Web
servers and host computers that let incompatible systems talk to one another as
if they were virtual twins.
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Meanwhile vendors, looking to jump on what they perceive as a bandwagon
rapidly gaining speed, claim that anything they do that uses XML is Web
services. And the confusion extends beyond the complications of the technology
itself. No wonder, every CIO we spoke to feels it difficult to determine the
business value of Web services. Primarily there is confusion at three levels.
First, to many Web services still means only Web sites. Then there is the
changing nature of the technologies themselves. Confusion at the second level is
understandable, given that standards are still in the process of definition. As
for the third level, CIOs demand that even if they understand the technology, no
vendor has yet been able to convincingly show them the RoI to be derived from
implementing Web services.
Individual vendor spin tends to further confuse the issue, for instance, Sun
Microsystems, who claims that it is not merely Web services, but Smart Web
services that that would ultimately find takers amongst enterprises. However,
the saving solace is that Anil Valluri, Director-Systems Engineering, Sun
Microsystems India offers a convincing explanation to expound this point of
view. "According to us, when we say smart Web services, we mean a scenario
when each one can create a Java or .NET based Web service and publish to a UDDI
directory and anyone can discover the service access over the net using
protocols like SOAP and XML. Whereas mere Web services would mean software code
written using Java or .NET technology and not published or discovered
automatically through a UDDI mechanism".
Therefore, according to Sun, a Web service is a part of smart web service but
is not all of it. It is a good step in the direction of smart Web services
adoption. Another important enabler for a smart Web service is federated
identity for doing business transactions, where a user's identity is passed
from one organization to another in a 'circle of trust' federation for
utilizing the service.
Admits RamKumar Kothandraman, Microsoft Architect Evangelist on Web Services:
"Web services is confusing because there has been a little bit of marketing
hype, as opposed to speaking about its business value. But all that is changing
now, as enterprises see for themselves the exponential value that implementing
Web services brings along." Valluri agrees: "RoI on Smart Web Services
is justifiable on increased business through e-commerce and ease of use. It
clearly helps in intelligent up-sell for one's customers and business
partners," he asserts.
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Dhruv Singhal, Head Professional Services, BEA Systems tries to convince to
not look at Web services as an extension of the Sun-Microsoft conflict. His
contention is that enterprises today live in a heterogeneous environment where
the key point of a discussion is not .NET vs Java. As an enterprise starts to
embrace Web services, or move into adoption of Service Oriented Architecture (SOA),
the question of whether a particular service is implemented on .NET or J2EE
becomes secondary. He feels that Web Services is truly promising because it is
implementation agnostic. "BEA intends to differentiate itself by providing
the best interoperability and best implementation to address infrastructure
issues such as reliability, scalability, performance, and availability,"
Singhal informs.
Standard conflict
While the non-emergence of a clear definition as well as a clear RoI model
has proved to be a stumbling block for Web services adoption, a plethora of
conflicting standards has added to the woes. Despite the blitzkrieg of standards
work, Web services languages today are in roughly the same position as word
processors were 15 years ago-lots of incompatible choices. No wonder, Web
services adoption has suffered in the midst of this quandary.
The standards battle is being waged on two fronts: consortia are creating
competing specifications, as are XML tool developers. CIOs who ignore the war
will be letting these groups decide which will become the specifications of
choice. A worst-case scenario could find a company building its internal Web
services in one language but its competition, and its suppliers, building in a
different language. Sorting out XML standards is today like virtually cleaning
the proverbial Augean stables. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is working on
high-level infrastructure issues, while the Organization for the Advancement of
Structured Information Standards (OASIS) is defining practical processes users
need.
However, some standards complexity is unavoidable because XML is not a
standard, but just a mark-up language. Because it is so dynamic, it can create a
new standard on the fly. The beauty of XML is that it can help create a language
for any application or business process just by defining the variables in tags.
XML uses those tags to understand, move, process and format data. This possibly
explains Ram Kumar's assertion that Web services is becoming like how an
enterprise can expose its different business processes by enabling a services
framework that would allow them to talk to each other.
Singhal informs that BEA has been very open about supporting the standards
based computing. "We continuously drive new innovation into the standards
process in each of the software stacks that BEA participates in. In areas where
there are existing standards, BEA strives to deliver the best implementation of
those standards. In areas where there are none, we lead the standardization
process." He claims that BEA works closely with other leading players in
the market to define and drive it through the standards process. For example, as
one of the original authors (along with IBM and Microsoft), BEA continues drive
the BPEL standardization.
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Other than the lack of a convincing business case and confusion over
standards, Web services have also witnessed other roadblocks in India. For one,
the b2b space in India itself has not grown in the magnitude expected. This has
obviously stymied more widespread adoption of Web services across enterprises.
In addition, implementation of EAI within large enterprises have also been a
deterrent for Web services. Large enterprises have completed deployment of their
core applications and have now started integrating these applications. One can
now expect to see some of these organizations standardizing on Web Services as
the technology for exposing standard services.
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Security and Interoperability
As more and more Web services come online, more and more information will
pass across networks at risk from any number of mishaps, from data loss to
break-ins by malicious hackers. Organizations like the W3C and companies ranging
from Microsoft and Sun are working together to develop security standards to use
in Web services. Valluri advises that identity infrastructure would be a
strongly recommended pre-requisite before enterprises go in for smart Web
services for business. Additionally, adoption of open standards based federated
identity technologies such as "Liberty Alliance" should be considered
for business transactions across organizations. Already this "Liberty
Alliance" has 160 members and is one of those rare platforms where Sun and
Microsoft are working together.
Singhal informs that BEA provides support for the latest Web services
security standards as well as the ability to connect to third party Web service
security providers. "Specifically the platform provides: Security and
transactions via standard J2EE mechanisms; HTTP authenticated identity that can
be passed to EJBs; Supports J2EE roles via a web app and EJB deployment
descriptors; Standard container-managed transactions (via EJB)." Also, most
vendors like BEA, are investing heavily in support of emerging security Web
services standards such as WS-Security, WS-Policy. Most are working to get them
in good shape with a stable specification, interoperability, as well as
availability on royalty-free terms.
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Interoperability is another issue that needs to be hashed out among the
various Web services providers. So far, the various companies driving the
standards committees (Microsoft, Sun, BEA, IBM, Oracle and HP are playing nice
as they hammer out standards the entire Web services community can adhere to,
but how long remains a question. Businesses go with the name they trust, or with
the company they have been using all along. The market position each of the
leading Web service proponents share encompasses much of the computer world
today not only in India, but across the world.
The initial success of the technology will depend largely on these Web
services companies' willingness to allow information to be passed from one
business to another using different platforms.