Q&A: Oasis exec discusses role in Web services

Oasis is a nonprofit, international organization that creates interoperable industry specifications based on public standards such as XML and Standard Generalized Markup Language, an international standard for electronic document exchange. Members include IBM, BEA Systems, Accenture, Oracle and Sun.

In 1999,Oasis teamed up with the United Nations Center for Trade Facilitation and Electronic Business (UNCEFACT). Since then, the two have been working on a way for businesses to connect over the Internet and conduct e-commerce. Their efforts have resulted in e-business XML (ebXML), which defines a common way for companies - no matter their industry - to handle and route data to each other over the Internet.

Now ebXML is expected to play a part in Web services, which are XML- and HTML-based tools that allow businesses to integrate applications internally and externally over the Internet.

Patrick Gannon, Oasis president and CEO, recently sat down with Network World Senior Writer Kathleen Ohlson to discuss Web services and how Oasis is involved with Web services adoption.

What role is Oasis playing in Web services?

Oasis provides an open environment to develop application-oriented standards, as well as help users with implementation activities.

Our overall mission is the acceptance and adoption of interoperable specifications, and to move [those specifications] from adoption to implementation. EbXML is an excellent example of that. We worked together with an industry association, the UNCEFACT. It created an opportunity to bring together vendors to define a business process. We were able to create proof of concept demos [from there].

The technology has existed [for Web services], but we needed the framework to be able to do modular component computing. We now can make this possible with the adoption and the acceptance of a few core interoperability standards - UDDI [Universal Description, Discovery and Integration] and SOAP [Simple Object Access Protocol].

How do you define Web services?

We believe the definition of Web services spans the whole spectrum. In terms of simple Web services, it's a discrete process that gets information and doesn't depend upon a prior process - for example, if you're looking up a currency exchange and you want to know what the U.S. dollar amount is for the French franc.

Complex Web services are multiple discrete transactions integrated with multiple trading partners. An application is invoked by another application - looking up a business partner, searching a UDDI and receiving an interactive display with your results.

What are the benefits of Web services? What are their obstacles?

[The key to Web services is that] they're dynamic. They'll be fashioned based on responsive environments and customer needs. They'll offer a wider range of services, and they'll be able to integrate an application over a wide-area network in a dynamic fashion.

This is possible using the standards for interoperability that are in place - the standards can invoke one application to another.

Some concerns really have to do with ease of implementation. Right now, the dialogue [surrounding Web services] is tech-oriented around traditional speeds and feeds. Whether it's called SOAP, XML, it doesn't matter. The end user says: 'I don't care what you call it. I want something dynamic to send messages. Make it simple.'

What direction do you see Web services going in the next year or so and where do you see Oasis involved?

Web services and ebXML will move beyond the technology. They will offer a new way to do business at a lower cost. We'll have faster and richer tools. We'll combine tools together and construct new business processes.

Our role at Oasis is to bring together development tools, industry organizations and end-user companies and put them together for pilot implementation projects. There are activities already under way [to make SOAP and UDDI standards], but we could be the organization that organizes the tech committee for them that moves them beyond as initiatives. As part of another effort, we're independent and we can expand the adoption view and make them a piece of a broader whole.

What other projects is Oasis involved in?

We provide an open framework for individual companies and groups to come together. We're looking into the Human Markup Language, which looks at how human characteristics fit into XML. Computer models are able to more closely mimic exchanges of information and the way people tend to operate.

We've also just formed a BTP [Business Transaction Protocol] committee with BEA, Bowstreet and others, and we had 40 to 50 partners join within a month. We'll release a specification sometime soon here. It defines rules, which invoke long-running conversations. A business process sometimes takes two weeks. For example, if you need to contact a custom office and you're waiting for a response, that delays the process. BTP centers around how to create and run an automatic process and get the status on that. It's very much needed in certain markets, such as trade and international shipping.

Oasis