OASIS WS-Calendar Committee Addresses Need for Precise, Secure Exchange of Scheduling Data in Smart Grid and Other Applications
WS-Calendar Adapts Human Scheduling Standards for Web Services
Boston, MA, USA; 13 September 2010 — The OASIS international consortium has formed the Web Services Calendar (WS-Calendar) Technical Committee to adapt existing calendaring standards (those used in human interactions) for Web services. WS-Calendar data structures are being designed for use inside other specifications and standards, with an initial focus on utility pricing and scheduling in the US federal “Smart Grid” open standards program and similar electricity supply re-engineering projects. The Committee’s work is based on the iCalendar (IETF RFC 5545) XML serialization specification (xCal) from The Calendaring and Scheduling Consortium (CalConnect.org). An instrumental player in the formation of the OASIS WS-Calendar Technical Committee, CalConnect.org developed the CalWS-Restful Web Services Calendaring API specification specifically for the OASIS project. “CalConnect and OASIS enjoy a mutually productive collaboration, and we expect CalWS and WS-Calendar to continue to evolve together,” said Dave Thewlis, Executive Director of CalConnect. “At CalConnect, we will continue to advance CalWS to meet our own requirements and those of OASIS, and we intend to resubmit future versions of CalWS for inclusion in future versions of WS-Calendar. Our shared goal is to ensure these two specifications remain harmonized.” Although the initial focus of WS-Calendar is on electricity supply and demand, the specification’s time and price data elements are designed to be used in any area where the common exchange of scheduling information is critical, such as business process applications, emergency management, and smart buildings. “There are clear advantages in a standard Web services calendaring model in a robust transactional Smart Grid, where pricing can change by the second,” explained Toby Considine of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, chair of the OASIS WS-Calendar Technical Committee. “Obviously, there also are great benefits for many other transactional and business systems in a standard representation for basic calendaring and time sequence statements that works between domains. These data elements will help extend the easy, ‘apples-to-apples’ interoperability of iCalendar into a much broader world of inter-domain transactions.” Use cases and requirements on Demand Response (DR) and Distributed Energy Resources (DER) functions defined in the US Smart Grid project have been contributed to WS-Calendar by the North American Energy Standards Board (NAESB). CalConnect, NAESB, OASIS and other standard bodies are cooperating and interactively sharing their work in this effort, making WS-Calendar an early success for the key goal of open standards cooperation established by the U.S. government for the Smart Grid. Participation in the WS-Calendar Technical Committee is open to all interested parties. Archives of the Committee’s work are accessible to both members and non-members. OASIS is expected to announce a first public review of WS-Calendar 1.0 next month. In recognition of the level and closeness of the joint work done by the OASIS WS-Calendar Technical Committee and the CalConnect XML Technical Committee, OASIS and CalConnect are providing press releases in parallel; the CalConnect release may be found at http://www.calconnect.org/publicity/20100913-calconnect-oasis.doc. Additional information: OASIS WS-Calendar Technical Committee CalConnect XML Technical Committee About OASIS: OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards) is a not-for-profit, international consortium that drives the development, convergence and adoption of open standards for the global information society. OASIS promotes industry consensus and produces worldwide standards for the Smart Grid, security, Web services, XML conformance, business transactions, electronic publishing, and other applications. OASIS open standards offer the potential to lower cost, stimulate innovation, grow global markets, and protect the right of free choice of technology. OASIS members broadly represent the marketplace of public and private sector technology leaders, users and influencers. The consortium has more than 5,000 participants representing over 600 organizations and individual members in 100 countries. http://www.oasis-open.org Press contact: Carol Geyer Senior Director, Communications OASIS carol.geyer@oasis-open.org +1.978.667.5115 x209 (office) +1.941.284.0403 (mobile)