Engineers at large software companies, such as Microsoft and Sun
Microsystems, have created drafts for a key Web services specification under
the aegis of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).
As a byproduct of the companies’ pledge
to work together, Microsoft engineer Martin Gudgin and Sun Microsystems
engineer Marc Hadley delivered drafts of the Web Services Addressing
specification for exchanging messages on networks irrespective of
application or transfer protocol.
According to a W3C document, Web Services Addressing consists of a Core,
SOAPBinding and WSDLBinding. They define a set
of abstract properties and an XML information set to identify Web service
sources and endpoints in messages.
A Web service endpoint can be a processor or resource to which Web service
messages can be delivered. Endpoint references provide addresses for
individual messages sent to and from Web services.
WS-Addressing is crucial to preserving the ability of Web services —
application-to-application communication — to be shuttled across networks
regardless of the technology they’re sitting on.
Microsoft and Sun aren’t the only vendors working on WS-Addressing, which
also has support from IBM, BEA Systems and SAP. But Sun wasn’t on board when
the spec was introduced by IBM, BEA and Microsoft last year.
But ever since a blockbuster April settlement in which the vendors agreed to
work on Web services interoperability, the companies have headed full bore
into development work, officially submitting
WS-Addressing to the W3C in August.
Last week, Sun and Microsoft unveiled
additional details of their broad cooperative efforts for interoperability,
including using APIs to make the Windows .NET stack and the Java stack work
together.
In related Web services news, Cape Clear, of Waltham, Mass., Thursday said
it added BPEL and WS-ReliableMessaging support for its latest enterprise
service bus (ESB), Cape Clear 6. A key vehicle for Web
services, ESBs trigger service-oriented architectureby
acting as middleware through which business services are offered.
Without BPEL support, Web services could not effectively be used in business
transactions without special custom coding. ReliableMessaging guarantees
message delivery over the Internet.
While Cape Clear has done a “remarkable” job upgrading the standards support
for Cape Clear 6, ZapThink analyst Jason Bloomberg questioned the company’s
decision to describe its technology as an ESB.
“Unlike offerings from ESB vendors like Sonic Software, Cape Clear’s ESB
doesn’t come with a messaging infrastructure, instead relying upon a
customer’s existing infrastructure,” Bloomberg told internetnews.com.
“Therefore, Cape Clear 6 is really more similar to Blue Titan’s fabric
approach than to other ESBs on the market. But unlike Blue Titan, Cape Clear
doesn’t offer enterprise-level scalability out of the box, either.”
“Instead, Cape Clear 6 can be installed in a J2EE application server, which
would then provide scalability, preventing Cape Clear 6 from being a true
stand-alone ESB,” he continued.