Wednesday, March 13, 2002

Simon: "In my mind authentication is missing, WS-Security covers sending some form of credentials (Kerberos token, x509 cert etc), but doesn't really cover how you got them in the first place. I'm not sure yet that doing authentication outside of web services, then trying to bundle the results inside a SOAP request is the way to go. The other major thing that's missing is some form of standardized store & forward reliable messaging transport, something like MSMQ or MQ series, I don't think that HTTPR is it. For me, those are the two things I keep wishing I could deploy today." Ok, so we 1. standardized authentication and 2. standard, reliable internet transport protocol.  That's the start of a list.  What else needs to go on that list? 9:27:05 PM

So the question should be: What is the full catalog of things that are still missing from the Web services picture?  ... [Snell's Blog] Take a look at the Interop Forum Stack Powerpoint that Becky posted with her summary of the WSDL interop meeting [Simon Fell] Right, this is the stuff that is already being worked on.  The more difficult question is: what's not in this picture that should be?  Also, from the communities perspective, what are the priorities for this stack? Which items should be done first? 8:12:48 PM

Is it a file system or a database.. sounds a bit like bundling their database server software into the operating system just like they bundled their browser into the operating system.  Kinda makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up. 4:20:13 PM

BTW, when I ask "what's next after Web services", I mean, what's the next step beyond the basic components of the Web services architecture (e.g. SOAP, WSDL, etc).  SOAP and WSDL are both being standardized.  They both have a ways to go but the process is underway.  Interop between SOAP and WSDL implementations is getting better daily.  Support for both is become more pervasive.  What is the next step for the community as a whole? 1:26:20 PM

Question: what's next after Web services? [Snell's Blog] I've noticed that the pace in the WS world seems to have slowed considerably, early on there was a flurry of specs, SOAP 0.9, 1.0, 1.1, SCL, SDL, NASSL, WSDL 1.0, 1.1. Since WSDL 1.1, things have been much slower, In trying to actually design / build / deploy web services, I continuely run in issues that indicate there's still a long way to go [at least for the class of problems I'm involved in], standards are needed authentication, authorization, signing & encryption, most of these appear to be in the works (signing is now a rec), but progressing slowing, and with no real support from in the toolkits. For example, there's all the noise about Passport, yet still no version that I can use in a Web Service. The reality / hype gap still seems pretty large. [Simon Fell] So the question should be: What is the full catalog of things that are still missing from the Web services picture?  We need an authentication standard, we need an authorization standard.  How about Management? Should there be standards for how Web services are managed across implementation platforms? Or should this be left to individual vendors or development platforms to figure out individually? What is the general opinion of the Web services community on how these standards should be bootstrapped? 10:49:29 AM