OASIS Approves UDDI 2 Standard

International standards body OASIS announced on Tuesday final approval of the UDDI standard version 2, but it's the next version of the specification that's expected to jump-start slow adoption of the technology for locating Web services across a network.

The adoption of version 2 of the Universal Description, Discovery and Integration standard, which proponents say will someday become the yellow pages for Web services, is significant because OASIS will turn its full attention to version 3, analysts said.

Corporations have been slow in adopting UDDI because of some technological shortcomings, such as security. Three other core Web services standards -- XML, SOAP and WSDL -- have been deployed within many technologically advanced corporations to connect business applications over networks. Most of the deployments have been behind corporate firewalls.

Web services is an umbrella term for an emerging set of standards for building applications that can communicate with each other over the Internet using XML. By using standard interfaces and Internet protocols, companies hope to reduce the cost of integrating applications with partners and customers to automate various business activities.

UDDI is a specification for publishing, locating, and integrating with Web services, and may someday enable computer systems to connect on their own over the Internet. While adoption of UDDI has been slow, many analysts expect to see significant increases in deployment over the next couple of years.

Version 3 of the specification is expected to drive adoption because it addresses security concerns and introduces the ability to have several interconnected UDDI registries. OASIS, which stands for the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards, has not given a date for the final release of version 3.

"The ratification of UDDI (version 2) by OASIS is a big thing for the organization as it allows them to focus on the next, and probably, most significant version of UDDI," Ronald Schmelzer, analyst at high-tech researcher ZapThink LLC, said.

Most companies are currently using Web services standards for point-to-point application integration, and haven't yet had to delve into UDDI, Schmelzer said. However, that's expected to change over time, if companies move to so-called service-oriented architectures, which proponents say is the next-generation design for building software that can communicate in standardized ways.

"As companies realize there are significant economic and business agility benefits in moving to a service-oriented architecture, they will realize that UDDI is no longer an option, but a necessity," Schmelzer said.

The OASIS technical committee developing UDDI comprises high-tech heavyweights IBM, Computer Associates, Fujitsu, Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, Sun Microsystems, and others.

This story courtesty of TechWeb.

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