Threats to XML Web services don't follow the conventions of traditional network or e-mail attacks. Therefore, network administrators and developers are forced to think outside the box in order to keep those messages safe as they traverse an enterprise network.

The Web Services Resource Framework (see Resources) proposes a model for accessing state using Web services. The WS-Resource Properties specification (see Resources) defines how you can query and change the data associated with a stateful resource using Web services technologies. This article shows how changes in the values of resource properties of a WS-Resource can be sent to a client that has subscribed to it in an IBM® WebSphere® Application Server environment using WebSphere Studio Application Developer V5.1.1.

Explore how transactions work in one common and classic form to preserve data integrity, and apply that classical transaction description to the operations of the new Web Services Atomic Transactions (WS-AT) and related Web Services Coordination (WS-C) specifications. Mapping classical to Web services transactions helps you discover that Web Services Atomic Transactions embodies age-old common industry best practices for one kind of transaction.

While the core of the Web services set of protocols has been agreed upon, many supporting protocols are still in the shop. Is there value in implementing Web services right now, and how is it best to implement them?

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer addressed a gathering of software industry leaders in Boston Wednesday, touting his company's vision for a bright future, while casting doubt on alternatives to his company's Windows operating system - in particular, Linux.

Web Services for DB2 Intelligent MinerTM is a collection of Web services that allow clients to describe and perform basic data-mining tasks using XML, XML Schema, and XPath on top of DB2 Intelligent Miner. It provides simple access to the main functions of DB2 Intelligent Miner Modeling and Scoring without requiring a single line of SQL to be written. In data-mining terms, modeling is the step of developing analytical models based on a set of input data. Scoring allows one to apply these models on large databases or single records to predict values. The Web services allow a client to execute these operations as tasks defined in XML. Modeling and scoring can thereby be executed as synchronous or asynchronous calls. Furthermore, the services interchange models by using the Predictive Model Mark-up Language (PMML), which is an open standard for describing data-mining models in XML.

In the first part of my article we discussed about the various basic elements of Web Services. In this article let me try and explain the Web Services Attributes and Methods in a simpler manner. As told earlier, in .Net a web service is a ASP.NET application with a file that has <.asmx> extension. The <.asmx> file is like the main function in a C program. In other words it is the starting point of the web service application. It can either contain code within itself or code in a code-behind file <.asmx.cs or .asmx.vb> which is the default style followed in Visual Studio.Net.

Web services are gaining industry-wide acceptance and usage. They are moving from proof-of-concept deployments to actual usage in mission-critical enterprise applications. While Web services allow businesses to connect to partners and customers, the same flexibility and connectivity provide an increased opportunity for errors.

COMMENTARY--The rise of internetworking was fueled by the use of network-level security technologies such as SSL, IPSec and firewall filtering to create a secure perimeter around an enterprise network. Today, this secure perimeter has become permeable as enterprises cut costs and drive revenues by securely sharing applications with internal business units, external partners and customers. This shift to the server-to-server access needed for true application sharing is enabled by new XML Web Services technologies.

Flex the power of Web services by learning how to easily leverage them within a Rich Internet Application (RIA) using Macromedia Flex for a more complex, engaging, and interactive client-side experience. RIAs are an evolution of the traditional Web page based model for Web applications. A big part of the attraction in using Flex for RIA development is the speed and ease with which you can leverage Web services in your applications. The authors walk you through several examples and simplify how sometimes confusing WSDL constructs map to Flex declarations.

As Web services standards evolve, those of us involved in their development and adoption are at a crossroads. We strive for open standards, unencumbered by patents and intellectual property rights. We want to compete not in the development of the standards but in how we use them in our products.

Web services protocol workshops allow the whole Web services community to be involved in the process of validating and refining Web services specifications. The workshop process helps to produce well-engineered specifications and prove the interoperability of the Web services specifications with interested parties in the industry. This process has many similarities with the process for software development, and is a deliberate attempt to apply the best practices from the Software Engineering community to the task of producing Web services specifications.

When I started to think about writing this month's column I looked on the Internet for a good way to define service-oriented architecture (SOA). Some of the definitions were interesting, like "A Service Oriented Architecture is basically a Collection of Services" (www.service-architecture.com/). Others were a little bit more technical, such as "SOA is an architectural style whose goal is to achieve loose coupling among interacting software agents" (www.xml.com).

Web services to date have largely been something of a theoretical matter for standards bodies. But real-world development is beginning to proceed in Web services. While not every thread of standards is perfectly in place, teams have moved ahead on this new technology.

“A couple of years ago, we began breaking down application suites into XML-based service methods,” said Steve Flammini, CTO at Partners Healthcare, headquartered in Boston. This began to move the IT infrastructure for the multibillion dollar integrated health care delivery system into the Web services world.

Boston is a walkable city with more than adequate public transportation. It is also a difficult place to keep or even park a car. So it's not surprising that car ownership is not a priority for many of the students at the famous universities -- Harvard, MIT, Boston University and others -- in the Boston area and for older knowledge workers, as well.

Keith Brophy, CTO at Robertson Research Institute, Saginaw, Mich., has been working on a Web services application whose objective has special relevance -- saving lives.

I was recently invited to be a guest speaker at the eBay Developers Conference, where I was part of a panel whose topic was "Delivering the Promise of Web Services." I found it particularly interesting, if slightly worrisome. What struck me most was the differentiation between Web services consumers and Web services authors.

Despite the lack of vendor support, Representational State Transfer (REST) web services have won the hearts of many working developers. For example, Amazon's web services have both SOAP and REST interfaces, and 85% of the usage is on the REST interface. Compared with other styles of web services, REST is easy to implement and has many highly desirable architectural properties: scalability, performance, security, reliability, and extensibility. Those characteristics fit nicely with the modern business environment, which commands technical solutions just as adoptive and agile as the business itself.

BEA Systems Inc., IBM Corp., Microsoft Corp., SAP AG and Sun Microsystems Inc. have submitted the WS-Addressing Web services specification to the Worldwide Web Consortium (W3C) for consideration as a standard, the companies said Tuesday.