Web Service Profiles - An Introduction

• What is the need ?

The Basic Specifications for Web Services are already in place - the ones for service description, discovery, and invocation.[Specifications for SOAP 1.2, WSDL 1.1, UDDI 2.0] With these small subset of specifications, its not tough to keep track of Products and their degree of support for these specifications. But there is plenty to be done for several other aspects that would realise the Web Service vision. These include

• Extensibility
• Binary Attachments
• Routing
• Correlation
• Guaranteed Message Exchange
• Signatures
• Encryption
• Transactions
• Process Flow
• Inspection
• More . . . . .

Each of these would be captured in a particular specification. With different versions of these interrelated specifications, it is difficult to know which product complies with which version of a specification. This could lead to chaos.

• What is the Solution

The Solution if by the usage of "Profiles" - which are nothing but a named group of Web Service Specificaitons at specific version levels, along with conventions as to how they work together. WS-I will develop a set of core collection of Profiles that support interoperability for general purpose Web Service functionality.

Some important points here to note:

• Profiles make it easier to discuss Web services interoperability at a level of granularity that makes sense for developers, users, and executives making investment decisions about Web services and Web services products. WS-I focuses on compatibility at both the individual specification and at the Profile level.
• To be a useful concept and avoid confusion, the number of Profiles should remain relatively small.
• Despite the best intentions of the standards authors, there may be ambiguities or areas that are so under specified that interoperability becomes difficult. A specification might also be of such a general nature that further conventions or recommended practices are necessary for interoperability. Therefore, in addition to the list of specifications or standards, a Profile may also contain one or more documents that resolve ambiguities or make recommendations for common usage. Such documents may apply to an individual Web service specification, or may pertain to how multiple specifications should work together.
• What is WS-I Basic Profile?
  Through the first phase of Web services adoption, four specifications have risen to prominence as providing the basic functionality required to start developing Web services. These specifications are XML Schema 1.0, SOAP 1.1, WSDL 1.1, and UDDI 2.0. The first profile proposed is WS-I Basic Web services.