..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.

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.

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.

Check out 'Understanding Web Services Policy' Paper

This morning, Microsoft published the 'Understanding Web Services Policy' white paper, which I co-authored with Dan Roth.

URI - http://msdn.microsoft.com/ws/2006/07/understanding-ws-policy/

Understanding Web Services Policy is an introductory description of the Web Services Policy language. This document describes the policy language features using numerous examples. This document is:

• for product decision makers who need to know the features of the language and how policy automates Web service interactions,
• for policy expression authors who need to understand the syntax of the language and understand how to build consistent policy expressions,
• for policy implementers whose software modules read and write policy expressions and
• for policy assertion authors who need to know the features of the language and understand the requirements for describing policy assertions.

For this white paper, I had the pleasure of working with Paul Cotton, Colleen Evans, Kirill Gavrylyuk, Martin Gudgin, Ram Jeyaraman, Andrew Layman, Jonathan Marsh, Jeffrey Schlimmer, Daniel Roth,  Jorgen Thelin  and Kyle Young. Writing this paper was satisfying and a great learning experience.

Check it out!

W3C Creates WS-Policy WG

Last Thursday, W3C created a Working Group to refine the WS-Policy and WS-PolicyAttachment submission and produce W3C Recommendations for Web services Policy. Paul Cotton (Microsoft) and Chris Ferris (IBM) are the co-chairs for this WG.

I will represent Microsoft in this Working Group. I am looking forward to this Working Group and working with Paul, Chris and other participants. W3C member companies may join this Working Group by filling up the participation form.

Sun and Microsoft Showcase WS-* Interoperability

Interop on the following WS-* specifications:

Quality of Service -- WS-Reliable Messaging, WS-Coordination, WS-Transactions
Security -- WS-Security, WS-Trust, WS-Secure Conversation, WS-Security Policy
Metadata -- WSDL, XML Schema, WS-Policy, WS-Metadata Exchange
Messaging -- SOAP, WS-Addressing, Message Transmission Optimization Mechanism (MTOM)

Read more ...

It's Official - Industry backs WS-Policy!

I am so thrilled to inform you that Web Services Policy Member Submission was acknowledged by W3C today. Nineteen companies participated in the submission.

http://www.w3.org/Submission/2006/06/
http://www.w3.org/Submission/WS-Policy/
http://www.w3.org/Submission/WS-PolicyAttachment/

Adobe Systems, BEA Systems, CA, Ericcson, IBM, IONA, Layer 7 Technologies, Microsoft, Ricoh Company, Nokia, Oracle, SAP AG, Sonic Software, Sun Microsystems, Systinet, TIBCO Software, VeriSign webMethods and WSO2 co-submitted WS-Policy and WS-Policy specifications to the World Wide Web Consortium.

Web Services Policy is a major component of the WS-* architecture. Web Services Policy defines how to express capabilities, requirements and general characteristics of a Web Service in an interoperable form (XML Information Set). It also describes mechanisms for associating policies with Web Service constructs such as endpoint, operation and message.

Web Services Policy is used to convey the conditions for an interaction between a Web service requestor and a Web service provider. Conditions for an interaction may include security, reliability, transaction, message optimization, etc. As such, Web Services Policy is a foundation for enabling secure, reliable and transacted Web Services.

At Microsoft, I am a technical diplomat and responsible for standardizing and building industry momentum around Web Services Policy. For this submission, I had the pleasure of working with Jeffrey Schlimmer, Daniel Roth, Kyle Young, Kirill Gavrylyuk, Jorgen Thelin and policy representatives from BEA, IBM, SAP, Sonic Software and VeriSign.