A.4. Web Services Profiles

77. The Web Services Interoperability organisation (WS-I) is a global industry organisation that promotes consistent and reliable interoperability among Web services across platforms, applications and programming languages. They are providing Profiles (implementation guidelines), Sample Applications (web services demonstrations), and Tools (to monitor Interoperability). The forward looking WS-I is enhancing the current Basic Profile and providing guidance for interoperable asynchronous and reliable messaging. WS-I's profiles will be critical for making Web services interoperability a practical reality.

78. The first charter, a revision to the existing WS-I Basic Profile Working Group charter, resulted in the development of the Basic Profile 1.2 and the future development of the Basic Profile 2.0. The Basic Profile 1.2 will incorporate asynchronous messaging and will also consider SOAP 1.1 with Message Transmission Optimisation Mechanism (MTOM) and XML-binary optimised Packaging (XOP). The Basic Profile 2.0 will build on the Basic Profile 1.2 and will be based on SOAP 1.2 with MTOM and XOP. The second charter establishes a new working group, the Reliable Secure Profile Working Group, which will deliver guidance to Web services architects and developers concerning reliable messaging with security.

79. Status: In 2006, work began on Basic Profile 2.0 and the Reliable Secure Profile 1.0. In 2007 the Basic Profile 1.2, the Basic Security Profile 1.0 was approved. More information about WS-I can be found at www.ws-i.org.