..OO.. Wheeling thru - by Asir

Changes in WS-Policy Proposed Recommendation Drafts

A list of changes since the Candidate Recommendation drafts is at http://asir.selvasingh.com/blog/changes-in-ws-policy-pr.html.

WS-Policy is W3C Proposed Recommendation!

On July 6th, the W3C published the Web Services Policy specifications (Framework and Attachment) as Proposed Recommendations. Web Services Policy is a metadata language that extends the foundation on which to build interoperable Web services. There is a strong community of active members in the W3C WS-Policy Working Group. Ten companies participated in the interop testing during the W3C implementation gathering phase. Windows Communication Foundation enables features such as security, reliability, transaction and message optimization using the Web Services Policy language.

Back Blogging ...

Nice to be back blogging! The last seven months, I've been heads down getting our lives back in order (and working on challenges at work). I'll post a brief note on where we are ...

Marriott is My Home

Today, we moved into the Marriott at the Redmond Town Center. Tully's Coffee (next door) is my kitchen. Whole Foods on Highway 202 is my pantry ...

Update - Temporary Living

We moved into Grazkos house (my neighbor). We found a town house (~2 miles from my house) for short term rental in the Lodge at Redmond Ridge. We plan to move in next week.

Through my builder, I located our house truss builder and roof installer, a general home improvement company. Projected ETA for re-construction (including a new truss and new roof) is 3+ months. Service Master surveyed the damages today. Tomorrow, they’ll start cleaning up the mess. My insurance adjuster (flew in from Texas) surveyed the damages several times. I met with him thrice.

Family is doing well. Last night, we had a full night sleep.

Homeless in Seattle

Thursday (12/14) night, gushing winds delivered two 175+ foot trees into our house. One crashed into my bedroom and the other landed on Jazlyn’s bed, a foot away from her. It is a miracle that the whole family is safe and sound.

Photo Courtesy: Ingrid Visser (my neighbor)

Thursday Dec 14th 11 PM, trees behind the master bedroom (on the left) were moving too fast. Winds were gushing in at 70 miles per hour. Caroline, Kaitlyn and I moved from the master bedroom to the guest room on the right. Jazlyn is sleeping in her room next to the guest room.

Friday Dec 15th ~1 AM, a 175+ foot evergreen fir crashed into the master bedroom. I jumped out of my bed to grab Jazlyn. As I rushed into Jazlyn's room, another 175+ foot evergreen fir crashed into Jazlyn's room and landed on her bunk bed. The second tree landed on Jazlyn's favorite sleeping spot. As I entered in, Jazlyn was fully covered with her blanket and I couldn't see where she was. After a few seconds, I found her a foot away from the landing spot. She was protected from the hard debris by the top bunk and from the soft debris by the blanket. I grabbed her and rushed out. We gathered in my office room in the first floor. We were all in our PJs. Windows and doors in the kitchen and family room were all broken and cold air was rushing in. We locked the office room and covered all the holes with Kaitlyn's blankets. I called 911. Given the scale of damages in King County, they made no promises.

Friday Dec 15th ~1:20 AM, power was out. By now, telephone lines were down.

Friday Dec 15th ~2:00 AM, I opened the front door. The landscape of our cul-de-sac had changed. Several trees (~70) disappeared. We were awake all through the night.

Friday Dec 15th 7 AM, I saw Al (my neighbor) stepping out. I approached him. Al and I surveyed the damages. Backyard was too dramatic. We shutdown the gas, water and electrical lines. Neigbors and more help arrived ...

It is a miracle that the whole family is safe and sound.

Our house is badly broken in the back. Residents in my community came together and helped us prevent further damages. They packed our belongings and moved them to the front of the house, boarded all open areas and brought us food. This evening, a local roofing company removed the trees and sealed the top temporarily. We are staying at Kamal's (one of our neighbors) house. I am looking for short term temporary housing.

How Does an Application Retrieve Policies?

Just as other service metadata languages (say XML Schema and WSDL), Web Services Policy does not mandate any specific policy retrieval mechanism or specify a mechanism to indicate a (or a sequence of) retrieval mechanism (s).

Any combination of any retrieval mechanisms in any order may be used for referencing policy expressions. Choice of one or more retrieval mechanisms (or a sequence of retrieval mechanisms) is a prerogative of the application that references a policy expression. Example retrieval mechanisms are:

• Do nothing. A policy expression with the referenced IRI is already known to be available in a local cache or chip (embedded systems).
• Use the referenced IRI and retrieve an existing policy expression from the containing XML document: a policy element with an XML ID.
• Use the referenced IRI and retrieve a policy expression from some policy repository/registry (local or remote) or catalog. Policy tools may use any protocols (say Web Services Metadata Exchange) for such metadata retrieval. These protocols may require additional out of band information.
• Attempt to resolve the referenced IRI on the Web. This may resolve to a policy element or a resource that contains a policy element.

These illustrative examples are briefly described in the Web Services Policy Primer.

By not mandating any specific policy retrieval mechanism or specifying a mechanism to indicate a (or a sequence of) retrieval mechanism (s), the Web Services Policy Framework offers a level of abstraction from any underlying concrete application context. This way, a policy expression is usable in different environments.

Caffeine-free Chai?

Have you tried an Indian masala chai that is caffeine-free? Try Numi Ruby Chai. Numi Ruby Chai is a blend of Rooibos, cloves, nutmeg, ginger and cardamon. This is a great chai. I love it.

Changes in WS-Policy Last Call Drafts

A list of substantive changes since the WS-Policy Member Submission is below:

Web Services Policy Framework

1. Defined WS-Policy 1.5 Framework and Attachment XML Namespace Name versioning policy (see 2.3 XML Namespaces).
2. Added support for the xml:id attribute (see 4.2 Policy Identification).
3. Added a conformance section – 6. Conformance.
4. Replaced URI with IRI.
5. Enhanced 5. Security Considerations (new content is from the Security Considerations Section in the Understanding WS-Policy MSDN white paper).
6. Clarified that an unrecognized element within a policy expression MUST be an assertion (see 2.2 Extensibility).
7. Clarified that policy assertion parameters are opaque to framework processing (see 4.3.2 Policy Assertion Nesting).
8. Added element extensibility (via {Any}) to the PolicyReference element (see 4.3.4 Policy References).
9. Added a new feature: 4.4 Ignorable Policy Assertions.
10. Defined an XML Media Type to describe Web Service Policy documents serialized as XML in Appendix A. The application/wspolicy+xml Media Type.

Web Services Policy Attachment

1. Defined WS-Policy 1.5 Framework and Attachment XML Namespace Name versioning policy (see 2.2 XML Namespaces).
2. Added a conformance section – 8. Conformance.
3. Replaced URI with IRI.
4. Added a new section - 5. WS-Policy Attachment for WSDL 2.0 - that describes a mechanism for associating policy expressions with Web service constructs in WSDL 2.0.
5. Added a new domain expression: 3.4.1 URI Domain Expression.

Check out WS-Policy Last Call Drafts

Today, the Web Services Policy Working Group published the Last Call drafts:

• http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/WD-ws-policy-20061117
• http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/WD-ws-policy-attach-20061117

Check them out! Later, I'll post a list of substantial changes in these drafts since WS-Policy Member Submission.