The Oasis web services standards body is trying to head
off a battle between reliable messaging standards by agreeing a
joint development program for rival systems.
Oasis (Organisation for the Advancement of Structured
Information Standards) has agreed to develop the WS
ReliableMessaging (WS-RM) and WS-RM Policy specifications within
the Oasis open standards process.
WS-RM is backed by BEA Systems, IBM, Microsoft, and Tibco
Software while Oasis has the support of more than 600
organisations, including both users and suppliers.
Gartner analyst Charles Abrams said the move was a step forward
for end users. “Reliable messaging is key to the future growth of
business-to-business web services. The need for secure and
verifiable transactions among trading partners is paramount.
“Until now, there have been two duplicative efforts,
WS-Reliability, an Oasis Standard, and WS-RM, a major vendor-backed
specification effort. This has caused some end user confusion and
concern.
“Now that both efforts are under the auspices of Oasis, with
major vendor support for both WS-Reliability and WS-RM, end user
needs should be better served,” said Abrams.
The new Oasis Web Services Reliable Exchange (WS-RX) technical
committee will broaden the development of the specifications that
comprise both protocol and policy assertions for reliable message
exchange.
"Oasis is happy to serve as the nexus for reliable messaging
work in the web services arena and service-oriented architectures
generally," said James Bryce Clark, Oasis director of standards
development.
"We're pleased to see software developers acknowledge the
benefits of bringing their work to an open standards process, where
all interested and affected parties can contribute to the
outcome."
Gartner’s Abrams said he expected both standards to eventually
merge.