The Hindu Business Line : Time for truce

THE August 21 announcement by The UDDI Business Registry Operators Council comprising Microsoft, IBM, SAP and NTT Communications about the distribution of test copies of the Universal Description, Discovery and Integration (UDDI) specification hopefully marks the end of the knock-down-and-drag-out fight between Microsoft and Sun Microsystems over standard-setting in the delivery of messages in Web services applications.

The UDDI specification is a registry and locator service that identifies and catalogues Web services applications so that they can be found with comparative ease online. Web services cover all software applications developed in accordance with standards designed in a manner as to enable programmes to interact smoothly over the Web or a corporate network.

The UDDI had been introduced about three years ago but had lagged behind other Web services standards such as the Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) and the Web Services Description Language (WSDL). Conceived as a locator service on the Internet that would allow companies to use a comprehensive network of third-party Web services applications, the directories have so far been used within corporate networks as a means of storing data on available Web services.

This will change now, with the Registry Operators Council moving to promote the usage of UDDI by providing support to software developers. According to the council, it will soon make beta copies of UDDI Version 3 available to developers of Web services applications. It may be recalled in this context that, earlier this year, the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS) had ratified Version 2 of the specification as an industry standard.

And, when it does, so will Web services, the general acceptance of which had, hitherto, been impacted by rivalry in standard setting.

Web services have been around for three years now but hadn't gained traction owing to inter-operability uncertainties arising from conflict over standards. The first set of standards was enunciated by the Web Service Interoperability organisation (WS-I), a provider-backed standards group, but they didn't go far because of wrangling by Microsoft and Sun. For instance, Microsoft had come out with a specification called WS-ReliableMessaging (WS-RM) that it had written along with IBM, BEA Systems and Tibco. The specification, which had been published but not submitted to any standards group, was structured to ensure that XML (Extensible Markup Language) documents could be sent between computers. But then, Sun, Oracle, Fujitsu, Hitachi, NEC and Sonic Software came out with another specification called Web Services Reliable Messaging which they submitted to the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards in February for development as an industry standard.

Even as Microsoft was talking about WS-RM, Sun had put out a statement calling the initiative detrimental to the advancement of industry standards necessary to ensure interoperability between products from different providers. Sun had further pointed out that that Microsoft and IBM had not made the standards-creation process inclusive enough. "The continued development by Microsoft, IBM, BEA and Tibco of WS-RM outside of the existing standards work at OASIS purposefully adds to the complexity and general fragmentation of Web services standards," Sun had said in its statement. "There is absolutely no reason for these vendors to duplicate efforts that are currently under way in recognised standards bodies."

The fact that there were two oversight organisations - the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and OASIS - dealing with different Web services standards didn't help matters much either.

While various rival companies were having fun mixing it up all over the place, some businesses decided to play it safe and wait for the emergence of a standard before buying Web services technology while other more daring outfits acquired the technology and ironed out incompatibilities on their own.

Version 2 of UDDI introduces the capability to attach a classification to a Web services directory and, thereby, allows companies to identify the contents of the UDDI directory to cover their industry, product categories and so on. Version 3 will introduce the interconnection of a diversity of registries and is expected to improve the security of UDDI directories with digital signatures. OASIS is yet to commit itself to a date for the standardisation of Version 3.

eworld@thehindu.co.in

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