Web services reliability spec moves to OASIS

The Web Services Reliability specification, announced by Sun Microsystems, Oracle, and Fujitsu in January, is being placed under the jurisdiction of OASIS, which will consider the proposal for promotion as an industry standard, according to Oracle and Sun officials on Friday.

The specification is to be considered by the OASIS Web Services Reliable Messaging Technical Committee, said Jeff Mischansky, director of Web services standards at Oracle, in Redwood Shores, Calif. Submitting the proposal to OASIS for standardization "seemed like the quickest way to get the work started," he said. A final version of the specification is expected to be completed by September or October, Mischansky said.

The WS-Reliability specification is intended to help accelerate adoption of Web services through linking of applications via standard interfaces. The specification features extensions of SOAP intended to guarantee Web services delivery, eliminate message duplication, and provide for message ordering. The specification is royalty-free, meaning no vendor can collect fees for use of its technology in the proposal.

"The key things that are missing from Web services in today's world are interoperability, security, and reliability, and interoperability is being addressed by [the Web Services Interoperability Organization], there's already ongoing security work in OASIS, and the last of the major three [obstacles] is reliability," Mischansky.

Companies supporting WS-Reliability already include Sun, CommerceOne, Sonic Software, Fujitsu, Oracle, NEC, Hitachi, Iona, SeeBeyond, WRQ, webMethods, and SAP, Mischansky said.

"We're very hopeful that other companies, including IBM, Microsoft, and BEA, will decide to participate once the technical committee starts going," he said.