Boston, MA, USA; 6 November 2001--OASIS, the XML interoperability consortium, announced that its members have formed the OASIS Provisioning Services Technical Committee to define an XML-based framework for exchanging user, resource, and service provisioning information. The new OASIS Technical Committee will collaborate to develop the Provisioning Services Markup Language (PSML), an end-to-end specification for the automation of user or system access and entitlement rights to electronic services.

"PSML will provide the framework for standards-based interoperability in the provisioning market," explained Darran Rolls of Waveset Technologies, chair of the OASIS Provisioning Services Technical Committee. "Today, provisioning vendors and enterprise systems resource vendors use proprietary APIs and data models for security administration. Our goal at OASIS is to open the interfaces between multiple provisioning systems--as well as between the provisioning system and the resources being managed."

"Provisioning is a key component of Web services," noted Patrick Gannon, president and CEO of OASIS. "Whether you're talking about provisioning accounts into a partners' extranet, an outsourced application, an Application Service Provider (ASP), or a trading exchange, ultimately all these areas are going to be offered as Web services. Without a standardized approach, provisioning will add a significant administrative burden to Web services. The OASIS Provisioning Services Technical Committee will provide a fundamental benefit to enable Web services as a practical business tool."

In keeping with the consortium's mission to promote convergence and unite disparate efforts, the OASIS Provisioning Services Technical Committee will consider contributions of related work from other groups and companies. The XRPM (eXtensible Resource Provisioning Management) Working Group, the Active Digital Profile (ADpr) Initiative and developers of the Information Technology Markup Language (ITML) all plan to submit specifications to the new OASIS technical committee.

"Provisioning systems are an integral part of the identity and access management infrastructure for both large enterprises and trading communities. The OASIS initiative to develop a new XML-based standard for provisioning systems to interoperate with each other removes a major obstacle to the deployment of effective account management strategies that span applications, platforms, and corporate boundaries," said Phil Schacter, VP & Director of the Burton Group. "It's only through broadly supported collaboration that we can achieve convergence on a single standard, which the industry can leverage to deliver truly effective solutions to customer provisioning problems."

Organizations collaborating on the OASIS Provisioning Technical Committee include Access360, Business Layers, Jamcracker, Novell, Oblix, OpenNetwork Technologies, and other OASIS Contributors and Individual members. Participation is open to all OASIS members; interested parties will find information on joining OASIS at http://www.oasis-open.org/join.

OASIS will host an open mail list, pstc-comment@lists.oasis-open.org, for public comment on Provisioning Services. Completed work will be freely available to the public without licensing or other fees.

Industry Support for PSTC

"We are glad to have so many corporations come together in support of developing a standard for open provisioning interfaces for this industry. As a founder of the XRPM working group, Access360 is gratified to see our predecessor work in XRPM being considered as part of the PSTC," said Jeff Curie, director of enterprise strategy for Access360. "We look forward to actively contributing to the efforts of the PSTC to define standards for provisioning systems to interoperate between each other and with managed resources."

"Having introduced the concept of eProvisioning to the marketplace, and as the first company to push for a standardized technology framework for eProvisioning solutions, Business Layers is excited to be a part of an OASIS standards initiative that will ultimately increase the value of the technology for our clients," stated Adrian Viego, CTO of Business Layers. "As enterprises around the world continue to embrace eProvisioning as a critical component of their IT infrastructure, the PSML specification will help our entire sector deliver solutions in a timely, effective and vendor-neutral manner. We heartily endorse the standardization efforts of OASIS and look forward to adding our expertise to the process."

"Automated provisioning is one of the key success factors to the rapid delivery of web services. Through the ability to have automated provisioning of distributed services, users will be able to rapidly access new services as they need them and IT will be relieved of the complex challenge of manual provisioning, subsequently reducing costs and optimizing time-to-service," said Bruce Hartsough, Vice President of Engineering, Jamcracker. "Jamcracker is excited to apply its extensive experience in delivering services over the Internet and be a direct part of this groundbreaking effort to define a standards approach to interoperable and automated provisioning." said Bruce Hartsough, vice president of Jamcracker's Engineering.

"Novell's one Net vision is founded upon a commitment to open standards, and so we're very pleased to see the cooperation of industry leaders to develop a standard approach to provisioning," said Winston Bumpus, director of standards for Novell. "Today eProvisioning solutions from Novell are helping many customers lower costs and increase security by automating business processes. The creation of a provisioning standard will no doubt enhance the scope of those solutions--and bring greater value to customers--by enabling improved interoperability among businesses, their clients and partners."

"Interoperability is a key part of empowering businesses in today's fast changing, diverse network environment. OASIS has always encouraged collaboration among industry leaders to make better progress toward interoperability and thus, we are fully supportive of this new OASIS Provisioning Technical Committee," says Enrique Salem, senior vice president of products and technology, Oblix.

About OASIS

OASIS is the XML interoperability consortium, advancing collaboration, convergence and adoption of open specifications for structured information exchange. Members themselves set the OASIS technical agenda, using a lightweight, open process expressly designed to promote industry consensus and unite disparate efforts. OASIS is the home for XML conformance, web services, security, business transactions, electronic publishing, topic maps and other interoperability specifications development.

OASIS and the United Nations jointly sponsor ebXML, a global framework for electronic business data exchange. OASIS operates XML.org, a community clearinghouse for XML application schemas, vocabularies and related documents. OASIS hosts The XML Cover Pages, an online reference collection for interoperable markup language standards.

OASIS has more than 400 corporate and individual members in 100 countries around the world. OASIS sponsors include Accenture, Access360, Adobe Systems, Agital, Altova, Arbortext, Auto-trol, Aventail, Baltimore Technologies, BEA Systems, Bentley Systems, The Boeing Company, Bowstree t, Business Layers, Business Logic Corporation, Chrystal Software, Cincom Systems, Citrix Systems, Cohesia, Commerce One, Critical Path, CrossLogix, Cyclone Commerce, DataChannel, Divine, Documentum, EADS Airbus SA, EDS, election.com, empolis, Engage, Enigma, Epicentric, Excelergy, eXcelon, Extricity, Fujitsu, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Identrus, Infoteria, Innodata, Intel, Interwoven, IONA, IPNet Solutions, ITEDO, Ivis Group, Jamcracker, Logistics Management Institute, Macromedia, Mercator, Microsoft, Neocore, Netegrity, Netscape/AOL, NextPage, NII Enterprise Promotion Association, Nimble Technology, NIST, Novell, Oblix, OpenNetwork Technologies, Oracle, Pearson Education, Popkin Software, Reed Elsevier, Republica, Reuters Limited, SAA Consultants, Sabre, SAP, Securant, SeeBeyond, Silverstream, SoftQuad Software, Software AG, Sterling Commerce, StreamServe, Sun Microsystems, Sybase, Tata Consultancy Services, The Tamalpais Group, Thomas Technology Solutions, Tibco, Unisys, US Defense Information Systems Agency, Verticalnet, Virtual Access Networks, Vitria, webMethods, Whitehill Technologies, Xerox, XML Global and Xyvision Enterprise Solutions.

For more information:
Carol Geyer
Director of Communications
OASIS
carol.geyer@oasis-open.org
+1.978.667.5115 x209