The Web Services Interoperability Organization has released WS-I Sample Application 1.0, a set of Web services designed to give developers an early look at how that WS-I Basic Profile 1.0 supports interoperability in real-world scenarios.
WS-I Sample Application 1.0, made available last week at the XML Conference & Exposition here, features technology and cases developed by 10 companies that are members of WS-I and the WS-I Sample Applications Working Group, officials of WS-I said.
The sample application offering features WS-I Supply Chain Management Use Cases 1.0, WS-I Usage Scenarios, WS-I Supply Chain Management Technical Architecture 1.0 and Sample Application 1.0 implementations developed by the 10 vendors.
Rob Cheng, a Web services evangelist for Oracle Corp., in Redwood Shores, Calif., and a spokesman for the WS-I, said the documents and implementations in the new sample application create a model of a supply chain management scenario and demonstrate features in Basic Profile.
“We promised three main deliverables: profiles, sample applications and deliverables,” Cheng told eWEEK at the conference. WS-I Sample Application 1.0 represents “a core deliverable and gets some concrete stuff in developers hands,” he said. “Its really a proof of concept. It shows developers are actually getting practical solutions to some of their concerns.”
Sinisa Zimek, director of technology architecture at SAP AGs SAP Labs, in Palo Alto, Calif., and chairman of the WS-I Sample Applications Working Group, said, “The basic idea of the sample applications is for us to go beyond the scope of what the other standards bodies are doing.”
Service, please WS-I Sample Applications Working Group members
| Service, please WS-I Sample Applications Working Group members
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Service, please WS-I Sample Applications Working Group members
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WS-I Sample Application 1.0 provides a configurable collection of Web services that put WS-I Basic Profile 1.0 to the test via a supply chain scenario that simulates interactions among multiple retail storefronts, warehouses and manufacturers, Cheng said. The organization is demonstrating vendors implementations at an interoperability demonstration at the conference.
Some users have been looking for just such assistance. Rich Maynard, an enterprise architect at The Hartford Financial Services Group Inc., in Hartford, Conn., said a key objective for his group in moving to Web services is to “reduce time to develop, maintain and document test cases.” Maynard warned implementers to “try to stay within the standards; were gone from the day when everybody does their own thing.”
Meanwhile, the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards conducted interoperability demonstrations at the XML conference. The group showed XML and Web-services-related standards such as electronic business XML, Security Assertion Markup Language, Universal Business Language, WS-Reliability and Extensible Access Control Markup Language working in scenarios including epidemic management, weather portal aggregation, supply chain operations and messaging.
Adobe Systems Inc., BEA Systems Inc., Citrix Systems Inc., Cyclone Commerce Inc., Fujitsu Ltd., Hitachi Ltd., IBM, Korean National Computerization Agency, NEC Corp., National Institute of Standards and Technology, Oracle, Sun Microsystems Inc., Vignette Corp., and others participated in the demonstrations.