Summaries of WS-DD specifications for final approval packages

According to Section 3.4(d) of OASIS TC Process, we must produce a “clear English-language summary” of each of our specifications for inclusion in the final approval submission package. On our previous call, I suggested that we could use the title page abstracts from each specification for this purpose. Here is what those abstracts say. For your information, I have also attached below the summaries of a few other OASIS specifications recently submitted for final approval, to give you a feel for their length and depth of content. My feeling is that while these WS-DD specification abstracts could be beefed up a bit, that’s probably not necessary, and that these brief statements will likely be sufficient for the purposes of inclusion in the announcement sent out by the TC Administrator; it is easy for reviewers to click on the links and bring up the specs to read the introductory paragraphs to get more information. Your thoughts are welcome.

-- Toby

DPWS

This profile defines a minimal set of implementation constraints to enable secure Web service messaging, discovery, description, and eventing on resource-constrained endpoints.

WS-Discovery

This specification defines a discovery protocol to locate services. In an ad hoc mode of operation, probes are sent to a multicast group, and target services that match return a response directly to the requester. To scale to a large number of endpoints and to extend the reach of the protocol, this protocol defines a managed mode of operation and a multicast suppression behavior if a discovery proxy is available on the network. To minimize the need for polling, target services that wish to be discovered send an announcement when they join and leave the network.

SOAP-over-UDP

This specification defines a binding for SOAP envelopes to use datagrams.

Examples of Other Recent Summaries

WS-Federation 1.2

This specification defines mechanisms to allow different security realms to federate, such that authorized access to resources managed in one realm can be provided to security principals whose identities and attributes are managed in other realms. This includes mechanisms for brokering of identity, attribute, authentication and authorization assertions between realms, and privacy of federated claims.

UIMA

Unstructured information may be defined as the direct product of human communication. Examples include natural language documents, email, speech, images and video. The UIMA specification defines platform-independent data representations and interfaces for software components or services called analytics, which analyze unstructured information and assign semantics to regions of that unstructured information.

WS-ReliableMessaging 1.2

The core WS-ReliableMessaging 1.2 document defines a protocol for reliable message exchange between two Web services, even in the presence of network or system failures. For example, the protocol can ensure the resending of messages that have been lost, and can ensure that duplicate messages are not delivered. The protocol allows Web service nodes to implement a variety of delivery assurances, including At Most Once, At Least Once, Exactly Once and In Order delivery of messages. The protocol fundamentally defines a one-way reliable channel (known as a Sequence), but also includes mechanisms to optimize the creation of two-way reliable exchanges. The protocol is designed to compose with other relevant standards such as WS-Security and WS-SecureConversation. The protocol allows developers to add reliable delivery of messages to their applications on a variety of platforms, including Java and .NET.

WS-ReliableMessaging Policy 1.2

The WS-ReliableMessaging Policy 1.2 document defines an XML policy language that enables Web services to advertise their support for the WS-ReliableMessaging specification. The specification is designed for use with the WS-Policy Framework. The language aids the interoperability of nodes that support WS-ReliableMessaging by publishing their support and requirements for aspects of reliable messaging. For example, an endpoint may use this specification to indicate that it requires that the reliable message protocol to be secured using transport level security. WS-ReliableMessaging Policy is designed to be used with other policy languages, such as WS-Security Policy, in the scope of the WS-Policy Framework.

WS-MakeConnection 1.1

The WS-MakeConnection 1.1 document defines a protocol that can be used to allow two-way communications when only a transport specific back-channel (such as the HTTP response mechanism) is available. For example, this allows a client to establish a two-way reliable message exchange even in the presence of firewalls and network address translation, that otherwise would prevent the server from initiating connections to the client.

WS-Trust 1.4

The WS-Trust specification uses the base mechanisms of WS-Security and defines additional primitives and extensions for security token exchange to enable the issuance and dissemination of credentials within different trust domains. Specifically, WS-Trust provides methods for issuing, renewing, and validating security tokens and ways to establish assess the presence of, and broker trust relationships.

Toby Nixon | Senior Standards Program Manager | Windows Device and Storage Technologies | Microsoft Corporation

toby.nixon@microsoft.com | www.microsoft.com | V: +1 425 706 2792 | M: +1 206 790 6377 | F: +1 425 708 4811

ws-dd message