There are a variety of specifications associated with web services. These specifications are in varying degrees of maturity and are maintained or supported by various standards bodies and entities. These specifications are the basic web services framework established by first-generation standards represented by

WSDL The Web Services Description Language (WSDL ) is an XML-based interface description language that is used for describing the functionality offered by a web service. The acronym is also used for any specific WSDL description of a web service (also ...

SOAP Soap is a salt of a fatty acid used in a variety of cleansing and lubricating products. In a domestic setting, soaps are surfactants usually used for washing, bathing, and other types of housekeeping. In industrial settings, soaps are use ...

, and

UDDI Web Services Discovery provides access to software systems over the Internet using standard protocols. In the most basic scenario there is a ''Web Service Provider'' that publishes a service and a ''Web Service Consumer'' that uses this service. ...

. Specifications may complement, overlap, and compete with each other. Web service specifications are occasionally referred to collectively as "WS-*", though there is not a single managed set of specifications that this consistently refers to, nor a recognized owning body across them all.

Web service standards listings

These sites contain documents and links about the different Web services standards identified on this page. * IBM Developerworks: Standard and Web Service
innoQ's WS-Standard Overview
()
MSDN .NET Developer Centre: Web Service Specification Index Page

OASIS Standards and Other Approved Work

Open Grid Forum Final Document

XML CoverPage

W3C's Web Services Activity

XML specification

XML Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing arbitrary data. It defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable ...

(eXtensible Markup Language) *

XML Namespaces XML namespaces are used for providing uniquely named elements and attributes in an XML document. They are defined in a W3C recommendation. An XML instance may contain element or attribute names from more than one XML vocabulary. If each vocabulary ...

XML Schema An XML schema is a description of a type of XML document, typically expressed in terms of constraints on the structure and content of documents of that type, above and beyond the basic syntactical constraints imposed by XML itself. These constra ...

XPath XPath (XML Path Language) is an expression language designed to support the query or transformation of XML documents. It was defined by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and can be used to compute values (e.g., strings, numbers, or Boolean v ...

XQuery XQuery (XML Query) is a query and functional programming language that queries and transforms collections of structured and unstructured data, usually in the form of XML, text and with vendor-specific extensions for other data formats (JSON, b ...

XML Information Set XML Information Set (XML Infoset) is a W3C recommendation, W3C specification describing an abstract data model of an XML document in terms of a set of ''information items''. The definitions in the XML Information Set specification are meant to be u ...

* XInclude * XML Pointer

Messaging specification

(formerly known as Simple Object Access Protocol) * SOAP-over-UDP * SOAP Message Transmission Optimization Mechanism * WS-Notification ** WS-BaseNotification ** WS-Topics ** WS-BrokeredNotification *

WS-Addressing Web Services Addressing (WS-Addressing) is a specification of transport-neutral mechanism that allows web services to communicate addressing information. It essentially consists of two parts: a structure for communicating a reference to a Web ser ...

* WS-Transfer * WS-Eventing * WS-Enumeration * WS-MakeConnection

Metadata exchange specification

JSON-WSP JSON-WSP is a web service protocol that uses JSON for service description, requests and responses. It is inspired from JSON-RPC, but the lack of a service description specification with documentation in JSON-RPC sparked the design of JSON-WSP. ...

* WS-Policy * WS-PolicyAssertions * WS-PolicyAttachment *

WS-Discovery Web Services Dynamic Discovery (WS-Discovery) is a technical specification that defines a multicast discovery protocol to locate services on a local network. It operates over TCP and UDP port 3702 and uses IP multicast address or . As the name s ...

WS-Inspection WS-Inspection is a Web service specification for "discovery documents" developed in a joint effort by Microsoft and IBM. WS-Inspection lists groups of web services and their endpoints in an XML format. Currently, other standards are being used fo ...

WS-MetadataExchange WS-MetaDataExchange is a web services protocol specification, published by BEA Systems, IBM, Microsoft, and SAP. WS-MetaDataExchange is part of the WS-Federation roadmap; and is designed to work in conjunction with WS-Addressing, WSDL and WS-Po ...

Universal Description Discovery and Integration Web Services Discovery provides access to software systems over the Internet using standard protocols. In the most basic scenario there is a ''Web Service Provider'' that publishes a service and a ''Web Service Consumer'' that uses this service. ...

(UDDI) * WSDL 2.0 Core * WSDL 2.0 SOAP Binding ** Web Services Semantics (WSDL-S) *

WS-Resource Framework Web Services Resource Framework (WSRF) is a family of OASIS-published specifications for web services. Major contributors include the Globus Alliance and IBM. A web service by itself is nominally stateless, i.e., it retains no data between ...

(WSRF)

Security specification

WS-Security Web Services Security (WS-Security, WSS) is an extension to SOAP to apply security to Web services. It is a member of the Web service specifications and was published by OASIS. The protocol specifies how integrity and confidentiality can be enfo ...

XML Signature XML Signature (also called ''XMLDSig'', ''XML-DSig'', ''XML-Sig'') defines an XML syntax for digital signatures and is defined in the W3C recommendationbr>XML Signature Syntax and Processing Functionally, it has much in common with PKCS #7 but is ...

XML Encryption XML Encryption, also known as XML-Enc, is a specification, governed by a W3C recommendation, that defines how to encrypt the contents of an XML element. Although XML Encryption can be used to encrypt any kind of data, it is nonetheless known as "X ...

XML Key Management (XKMS)
*

WS-SecureConversation WS-SecureConversation is a Web Services specification, created by IBM and others, that works in conjunction with WS-Security, WS-Trust and WS-Policy to allow the creation and sharing of security contexts. Extending the use cases of WS-Security, ...

WS-SecurityPolicy WS-SecurityPolicy is a web services specification, created by IBM and 12 co-authors, that has become an OASIS standard as of version 1.2. It extends the fundamental security protocols specified by the WS-Security, WS-Trust and WS-SecureConversat ...

WS-Trust WS-Trust is a WS-* specification and OASIS standard that provides extensions to WS-Security, specifically dealing with the issuing, renewing, and validating of security tokens, as well as with ways to establish, assess the presence of, and broker ...

WS-Federation WS-Federation (Web Services Federation) is an Identity Federation specification, developed by a group of companies: BEA Systems, BMC Software, CA Inc. (along with Layer 7 Technologies now a part of CA Inc.), IBM, Microsoft, Novell, Hewlett Pac ...

WS-Federation Active Requestor Profile WS-Federation Active Requestor Profile is a Web Services specification - intended to work with the WS-Federation specification - which defines how identity, authentication and authorization mechanisms work across trust realms. The specification de ...

WS-Federation Passive Requestor Profile WS-Federation Passive Requestor Profile is a Web Services specification - intended to work with the WS-Federation specification - which defines how identity, authentication and authorization mechanisms work across trust realms. The specification d ...

* Web Services Security Kerberos Binding * Web Single Sign-On Interoperability Profile * Web Single Sign-On Metadata Exchange Protocol * Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) *

XACML XACML stands for "eXtensible Access Control Markup Language". The standard defines a declarative fine-grained, attribute-based access control policy language, an architecture, and a processing model describing how to evaluate access requests a ...

Privacy

* P3P

Reliable messaging specifications

WS-ReliableMessaging WS-ReliableMessaging describes a protocol that allows SOAP messages to be reliably delivered between distributed applications in the presence of software component, system, or network failures. The original specification was written by BEA Syste ...

* WS-Reliability *

WS-RM Policy Assertion WS-ReliableMessaging describes a protocol that allows SOAP messages to be reliably delivered between distributed applications in the presence of software component, system, or network failures. The original specification was written by BEA Syste ...

Resource specifications

Web Services Resource Framework Web Services Resource Framework (WSRF) is a family of OASIS-published specifications for web services. Major contributors include the Globus Alliance and IBM. A web service by itself is nominally stateless, i.e., it retains no data between ...

** WS-Resource ** WS-BaseFaults ** WS-ServiceGroup ** WS-ResourceProperties ** WS-ResourceLifetime * WS-Transfer * WS-Fragment * Resource Representation SOAP Header Block

Web services interoperability (WS-I) specification

These specifications provide additional information to improve interoperability between vendor implementations. *

WS-I Basic Profile {{Short description, Interoperability guidance for core web services specifications The WS-I Basic Profile (official abbreviation is BP), a specification from the Web Services Interoperability industry consortium (WS-I), provides interoperability gu ...

* WS-I Basic Security Profile *

Simple Soap Binding Profile Simple Soap Binding Profile (official abbreviation is SSBP) is a specification from the Web Services Interoperability industry consortium. It is intended as a support profile for the WS-I Basic Profile. This profile defines the way WSDL (Web Serv ...

Business process specifications

* WS-BPEL * WS-CDL * Web Service Choreography Interface (WSCI) * WS-Choreography * XML Process Definition Language *

Web Services Conversation Language The Web Service Conversation Language (WSCL) proposal defines the overall input and output message sequences for one web service using a finite state automaton A finite-state machine (FSM) or finite-state automaton (FSA, plural: ''automat ...

(WSCL)

Transaction specifications

* WS-BusinessActivity * WS-AtomicTransaction * WS-Coordination * WS-CAF * WS-Transaction * WS-Context * WS-CF * WS-TXM

Management specifications

WS-Management WS-Management (Web Services-Management) is a DMTF open standard defining a SOAP-based protocol for the management of servers, devices, applications and various Web services. WS-Management provides a common way for systems to access and exchange ...

WS-Management Catalog WS-Management (Web Services-Management) is a DMTF open standard defining a SOAP-based protocol for the management of servers, devices, applications and various Web services. WS-Management provides a common way for systems to access and exchange m ...

* WS-ResourceTransfer * WSDM

Presentation-oriented specification

Web Services for Remote Portlets Web most often refers to: * Spider web, a silken structure created by the animal * World Wide Web or the Web, an Internet-based hypertext system Web, WEB, or the Web may also refer to: Computing * WEB, a literate programming system created by ...

Draft specifications

* WS-Provisioning – Describes the APIs and schemas necessary to facilitate interoperability between provisioning systems in a consistent manner using Web services

Other

* Devices Profile for Web Services (DPWS) *

ebXML Electronic Business using eXtensible Markup Language, commonly known as e-business XML, or ebXML (pronounced ee-bee-ex-em-el, 'bi,eks,em'el as it is typically referred to, is a family of XML based standards sponsored by OASIS and UN/CEFACT whose m ...

Standardization

ISO/IEC ISO/IEC JTC 1, entitled "Information technology", is a joint technical committee (JTC) of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC). Its purpose is to develop, maintain and p ...

19784-2:2007 ''Information technology -- Biometric application programming interface -- Part 2: Biometric archive function provider interface'' *

ISO ISO is the most common abbreviation for the International Organization for Standardization. ISO or Iso may also refer to: Business and finance * Iso (supermarket), a chain of Danish supermarkets incorporated into the SuperBest chain in 2007 * Iso ...

19133:2005 ''Geographic information -- Location-based services -- Tracking and navigation'' * ISO/IEC 20000-1:2005 ''Information technology -- Service management -- Part 1: Specification'' * ISO/IEC 20000-2:2005 ''Information technology -- Service management -- Part 2: Code of practice'' *

/ IEC 24824-2:2006 ''Information technology -- Generic applications of ASN.1: Fast Web Services'' * ISO/IEC 25437:2006 ''Information technology -- Telecommunications and information exchange between systems -- WS-Session -- Web Services for Application Session Services''

References

{{reflist

Specifications A specification often refers to a set of documented requirements to be satisfied by a material, design, product, or service. A specification is often a type of technical standard. There are different types of technical or engineering specificati ...

Web service specifications Web most often refers to: * Spider web, a silken structure created by the animal * World Wide Web or the Web, an Internet-based hypertext system Web, WEB, or the Web may also refer to: Computing * WEB, a literate programming system created by ...