The OASIS Web Services Reliable Messaging Technical Committee has published a milestone version of its Web Services Reliable Messaging (WS-Reliability) specification, including a prose document and four supporting XML schemas.

Safeguarding Web services is a lot like protecting your Web-based applications from attack. The current crop of application-layer security solutions can look for malformed Web traffic, URL tampering, and the like, but it does not look deep into SOAP messages or scrub XML for malicious content, thus leaving Web services exposed.

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?

XMLBus is IONA's award-winning Web services development toolkit. Artix, available since October 2003, is IONA's Web services integration tool for enterprise SOA and the successor to XMLBus. Artix is a platform-independent; standards-compliant set of infrastructure products for building Java, C/C++ and mainframe Web services. Artix allows organizations to define their existing applications as Web services, without worrying about the underlying middleware. It then provides the ability to expose those applications across a number of middleware technologies. Artix also enables developers to write new applications in C++ and Java that can also be exposed in a middleware neutral manner.

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.

XWebServices.com announced today the release of numerous enhancements to its XWebCheckOut web service. XWebCheckOut is an XML/SOAP based web service which provides integration and management of the standard e-commerce shopping cart checkout process (Basket -> Shipping -> Billing -> Credit Card -> Receipt) to client applications.

Vordel, the XML security company, and Entrust, Inc. (NASDAQ: ENTU), a world-leading provider of Identity and Access Management solutions, announced today that a major global distribution agreement has been signed that licenses Entrust to resell and support Vordel products worldwide. Incorporating VordelSecure, the XML gateway, and VordelDirector, the XML security server, into the Entrust(R) Secure Identity Management Solution portfolio will help enable Entrust to expand a single, high-performance and scalable solution that secures both Web site and Web service access to its enterprise customers.

New service enables municipalities such as counties to integrate voter registration systems with state voter registration systems yet maintain autonomy of systems; allows states to maintain central repository of registered voters for federal elections while ensuring greater buy-in from constituent municipalities.

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.

Reactivity Gateways are network appliances that receive and send all XML Web services transactions. They ensure any-to-any secure interoperability between heterogeneous connection partners. When the Reactivity Gateways receive a transaction, they defend against XML attacks, execute security and operational policies upon it, mediate standards, data and transports, route and log it. Reactivity's unique architecture enables rapid, seamless, and secure application integration inside and outside the enterprise.

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.

A transport company's trucks are scheduled for bogus pickups. A financial services firm's investment data is given away for free. A health insurance provider's private patient data is exposed. These are the disastrous situations that can occur when Web services data is nefariously snatched midstream.

Members of the OASIS Web Services Security Technical Committee are completing new work in the form of WSS profile specifications. The five profiles under development and review will complement the documents published as WSS 1.0 in April 2004.