Gaps remain in Web services

SANTA CLARA, Calif.-- Technology gaps remain to be filled in Web services before it can fulfill its potential as a standardized way to integrate applications, said panelists here Thursday.

Executives from companies such as Sun Microsystems, IBM, and BEA Systems, as well as audience members, sparred over now-familiar issues facing Web services, such as standardization and intellectual property rights. The panel was held at the Software Development Conference & Expo West 2003 show here.

If the audience was anything close to representative, Web services still have a long way to go before they are widely adopted. Asked for a show of hands on who was actually using Web services in production applications, only about five persons raised their hands among the audience of approximately 150 to 200 people.

Panelists had sharp responses to a query on what gaps must be filled for Web services to become accepted as a new way of computing.

"That's like describing theGrand Canyonas a crack," said Simon Phipps, chief software evangelist at Sun Microsystems. "I'd say we have an extremely long way to go before we have generally standardized business Web services," Phipps said.

Web services technology as it stands today is adequate for simple tasks, Phipps said. But to achieve more complex business processes, standard mechanisms are needed for functions such as encryption and transactional rollback, he said. Currently, users must deploy proprietary technologies with Web services interfaces in order to perform these tasks, Phipps added.

Acknowledging that standards works are in progress, Phipps noted that OASIS is deliberating on reliable messaging for Web services.

"Sooner or later, we're going to want to trade with multiple partners and we're going to want to have XML payloads that can be easily understood regardless of the vendor you're using," he said.

BEA Technical Director David Orchard concurred that standards are needed. "Web services is very much about interoperability across platforms and vendors. To do that, we really need standards and we need implementations of those standards, we need tested, interoperable implementations, and I think we're a far way from having those kinds of goals reached," Orchard said.

However, the industry has laid out a roadmap for achieving standards that work together, rather than separately, he added.

IBM's Mark Colan, lead e-business technology evangelist, said now is a good time for developers to start learning the multitude of terminologies related to Web services.