Vendors Collabrate On Web Services Spec

The new spec, called Web Service Choreography Interface (WSCI), was created by Sun Microsystems, BEA Systems, Intalio and SAP and is now available for review, said Susy Struble, manager of XML industry initiatives at Sun.

WSCI provides an interface that describes the flow of messages of a Web service, Struble said.

"It starts to begin to give more necessary descriptive information about [the service's capabilities to make it useful in a business process," Struble said.

To help solution providers and developers become familiar with WSCI, Sun also has released a new tool, the Sun ONE Web Service Choreography Interface Editor, on its Web site for free download, she added.

Karsten Riemer, a Sun XML architect, said WSCI picks up where Web Service Description Language (WSDL) leaves off in describing what a Web service does. WSDL describes the functions of a particular service but not how those functions relation to each other, Riemer said.

"WSCI describes all the relationships between all the things you can do [with a Web service," Riemer said. "It's the sequence of steps, the glue around individual WSDL operations."

Struble said Sun and the other companies that developed WSCI hope to submit the spec to a standards body such as the W3C once companies have had a chance to review WSCI.

David Chao, vice president of sales and marketing at solution provider Navidec, Greenwood Village, Colo., said collaboration on Web services standards is essential for the technology to work because many different software platforms exist in enterprises.

"With the issues we're facing when it comes to interoperability, the reality is there's no homogenous [IT environment," Chao said. "Anyone that claims [their system can become a homogenous environment is not [dealing with reality."

Although Sun is recognized as an industry leader in Web services development, reports that IBM and Microsoft purposefully prevented Sun from becoming a board member of the recently established Web Services Interoperability (WS-I) group have cast Sun as an outsider when it comes to leading the evolution of Web services interoperability.

Sun's membership in WS-I is still pending. Sun executives have said Sun won't join unless it is given a board position. The WS-I has yet to offer a board position to Sun but recently voted to invite two other new board members to join.

Struble would not comment on whether WSCI would become a part of the blueprints WS-I is developing to promote interoperability. However, once WSCI is donated to a standards body, WS-I would be as welcome as anyone else to use the spec, Struble said.