Web services group pushes interoperability

A group of industry heavyweights has formed a consortium to ensure that Web services developers implement common standards in the same way.

The consortium, called the Web Services Interoperability Organization, was announced last week and includes Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, BEA Systems, Oracle, Intel and SAP.

Absent from the group is Sun, creator of Java and one of the most prominent companies developing new tools and software for Web services. Sun executives were not available to comment on if Sun plans to join the effort, a company spokesman says.

The list of standards includes XML, Simple Object Access Protocol, Web Services Description Language and Universal Description Discovery and Integration.

But while the industry has rallied around the standards, few have taken steps to ensure their products will interoperate, says Mike Gilpin, a research fellow at Giga Information Group.

"You'd be surprised how little interoperability there really is despite standards," says Gilpin, adding that many companies support common standards but use them in proprietary ways. "Two different companies can build a Web service, each one following the same specification yet using different options, and those services would not be able to talk to each other."

Web services have been touted as a way to let applications of different types and from different vendors communicate with each other in a common way over the Internet. In the business world, Web services could allow a company to automatically share data with partners in its supply chain.

To overcome the problem of implementing standards in different ways, the group plans to create a variety of test suites that will let vendors and customers make sure their software interoperates. Tests will be self-administered and are intended to help uncover "unconventional usage or errors in specification implementations," the group says.

The problem is that as various software vendors raced to keep up with the latest standards, each creating its own, slightly different implementation, according to Rod Smith, vice president of Internet emerging technology at IBM.

"Customers didn't want to wait for the standards to be done, but they expected all of us to upgrade our systems," Smith says.

Berger is a correspondent for IDG News Service's San Francisco bureau.