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[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] [The 4 Waves of Web Services Standards] Re: WS-Emperor naked?
 Bob Wyman wrote: > > The list omits WS-Events and WS-Eventing which are "competitors" > to WS-Notification. (Note: I think WS-Eventing may have been dropped, > but WS-Events still appears to live.) > > The whole Web Services space is one that is based more on hope > than any real evidence of success. I agree that it is quite easy and tempting to consider Web Services as being represented by a single "block" of standards, but I believe it is more useful to think of it in various "waves" (or phases), and to talk about the success or failure of those waves. I assert that there are current 4 "Web Services Waves" in sight - one of which is already behind us (but still ongoing for future enhancements), and one of which we're in the midst of now. These are: (1) Core Specifications - Your basic SOAP and WSDL, whose early versions are mature and ubiquitous, and whose specification is still ongoing; - We have completed the initial "phase" of this Wave; (2) Advanced Specifications - These include security, identity management, reliable messaging, choreography, business process, and others; - We are well into this Wave; - For standards that define interactions between Web Services (such as choreography and business process), most of the interactions between Web Services *in practice* will be static rather than dynamic, even though the specifications address dynamic composability and interaction; (3) Semantic Wave - This (of course) includes the various semantic technologies (OWL, RDF, etc.) and their application to Web Services (OWL-S); - We are in the early stages of this Wave (so there is overlap with Wave #2); - For standards that define interactions between Web Services (see Wave #2), we will also begin to see more usage of dynamic capabilities due to the capabilities that Semantic Web Services will provide; (4) Advanced Semantic Wave - In this Wave, standards described in Wave #2 will take on semantic capabilities, and we will see unprecendented interactions between Web Services, more richly enhanced security capabilities, and many other benefits; - We have not yet begun this stage; Comments? Kind Regards, Joe Chiusano Booz | Allen | Hamilton Strategy and Technology Consultants to the World > There are dozens of companies that > have > invested heavily in this space and thousands of individuals who have > tied > their hopes to the idea of Web Services. The mere fact that nothing > useful > seems to be coming out of the expenditure of all this energy doesn't > seem > to have dimmed the desire to make it happen. > But, the basic ideas behind Web Services are really great! > Distributed applications are, in fact, a really wonderful idea. They > were > back when we first started implementing them seriously back in the early > 80's and they still are today. The idea of having standard interchange > formats and describing your interfaces with formal definition languages > like WSDL is also a good one that has been well proven over time. ASN.1, > CORBA IDL, many RPC interfaces, XML, and, of course, lots of IETF and > ISO > standards have validated these ideas. We should also be particularly > supportive of the attention that the WS-* folk give to reuse of > standards. > The mere fact that they seem to insist on defining new standards before > they are willing to reuse them should not take away from our > appreciation > of their appreciation of reuse as a concept. > > Finally, it should be noted that the really great thing about the > WS space is that it is *really* easy to put together a working group and > get your very own personal WS-* specification written and announced as a > standard. The traditional standards forums (ISO, IETF, etc.) are much > more > difficult to work through and result in much greater sharing of the > credit > than is typical of the groups that get WS-* stuff written up. The other > thing that is nice about WS-* stuff is that since there aren't many > working examples of the stuff, it is really easy to present one's self > as > an "expert" without having to deal with the embarrasment of failed or > competitive implementations. (If a standard is never deployed, noone can > *really* say if it is any good...) All of these factors and others tend > to > produce an environment which is very attractive to individuals and > companies who seek to feel like they are leaders on the bleeding edge. > There are few areas in our business today that can offer so much > personal > reward and so much press coverage in return for so little useful output. > > bob wyman -- Kind Regards, Joseph Chiusano Associate Booz | Allen | Hamilton 
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