Web Services Test Forum (WSTF)

Web Services Test Forum Launches to Improve Software and Web Services Interoperability

December 8, 2008.

The Web Services Test Forum (WSTF) launched today, providing an open community to improve the quality of the Web services standards, with initial membership from Active Endpoints, AIAG, Axway, CISCO, eviware, FORD Motor Company, Fujitsu, Hitachi, IBM, Oracle, Red Hat, Software AG, Teamlog, and TIBCO Software Inc.

Using customer-based scenarios, interoperability is validated in a multi-vendor testing environment. Customers and vendors alike, independent of their geographic location, can dynamically test their applications against available implementations to ensure interoperability is preserved. As an open community, WSTF has made it easy to introduce new interoperability scenarios and approve work through simple majority governance.

"As business demand for multi-enterprise process automation accelerates, the need to test community-based integration built on standards is critical," said Maureen Fleming, Program Director, Business Process Automation and Deployment at IDC. "The WSTF promises to be an important initiative for enterprises focused on improving the accuracy and lowering the cost of applications that require this type of interoperability."

Interoperability is a critical component to the success of Web services standards. WSTF members plan to work closely with their customers to develop scenarios and fill a void by providing access to an open forum to test or validate applications and services.

"The Web Services Test Forum (WSTF), an open organization consisting of representatives from industry, will play a key role in accelerating interoperability for Web services standards by not waiting for Web services standards to be approved before initiating testing based on customer scenarios", said Dan Toth, Manager, Enterprise Architecture at Ford. "It is very important that interoperability issues be identified as early as possible in order to eliminate obstacles to adopting Web services."

Members can test their product implementations against other members' in an open environment. Providing access to continuously available services minimizes the need for each vendor or customer to set up multi-vendor test environments in house. This testing is intended to help organizations deliver higher quality products and open standards specifications, simplifying integration and improving interoperability for customers in heterogeneous environments.

The Automotive Industry Association (AIAG) is the first industry association member of the WSTF. The AIAG joined WSTF to improve interoperability capability within the automotive messaging infrastructure.

"AIAG's members operate with a complex set of inter-related processes, executing both internally and connecting externally to their partners. Interoperability is a critical success factor for the automotive messaging infrastructure," said Tim Fowler, Director, Supply Chain & e-Commerce, AIAG. "AIAG sees WSTF as the forum in which we can quickly validate interoperability requirements against a multi-vendor environment and translate the results into concrete plans for the continual improvement of the automotive messaging capability."

Between the published scenarios and the ones under development, standards such as WSAddressing, WS-ReliableMessaging, WS-Security and WS-Transactions, are being validated by member's products with real world interoperability scenarios. The WSTF plans to also work with respective standards bodies to help speed the standardization process for emerging Web services standards.

The WSTF initiative is open to all software vendors, service providers and customers interested in furthering Web services and their use throughout the industry. Members are able to recommend and initiate work on new scenarios, supporting both emerging specifications and approved standards. For more information, please visit www.wstf.org.

For press and industry analyst inquiries, please contact publicrelations@wstf.org

[See attached quote sheet from participating WSTF members...]

Testimonials from Initial Participating WSTF Members

"Active Endpoints is committed to driving the development of open industry standards and the widespread use of web services by promoting interoperability," said Michael Rowley, director of technology and strategy, Active Endpoints. "We believe that through the Web Services Test Forum, organizations can now cost effectively create and test open standards-based integrations, helping them to drive greater adoption and deliver higher-quality products to their customers through real-world testing scenarios."

Mike Rowley, Director of Technology and Strategy
Active Endpoints
"AIAG's members operate with a complex set of inter-related processes, executing both internally and connecting externally to their partners. Interoperability is a critical success factor for the automotive messaging infrastructure", said Tim Fowler, Director, Supply Chain & e-Commerce, AIAG. "AIAG sees WSTF as the forum in which we can quickly validate interoperability requirements against a multi-vendor environment and translate the results into concrete plans for the continual improvement of the automotive messaging capability."

Tim Fowler, Director, Supply Chain and e-Commerce
AIAG
"Axway favorably welcomes this new initiative to promote the interoperability of Web Services. We believe the freedom of proposition given to each member of the group, combined with the move towards real-life business use cases, guarantees faster, more concrete results for our clients. As soon as Axway's Synchrony V4.1 platform goes live, we will be happy to actively participate in the ongoing project."

Meyniel Arnaud, Product Manger, Web Services
Axway
"eviware is proud to be part of WSTF, it's a great initiative", says Ole Matzura of eviware, "WSTF is a fantastic service to the Web Service Community". "It is good to see a group focused on the practical implications of the WS-Standards and how they affect interoperability", continues Mr. Matzura, "we have met this issue in our community and think WSTF delivers a great service and are happy to provide a contribution to the group."

Ole Matzura, CTO
eviware
"The Web Services Test Forum (WSTF), an open organization consisting of representatives from industry, will play a key role in accelerating interoperability for Web services standards by not waiting for Web services standards to be approved before initiating testing based on customer scenarios", said Dan Toth, Manager, Enterprise Architecture at Ford. "It is very important that interoperability issues be identified as early as possible in order to eliminate obstacles to adopting Web services."

Dan Toth, Manager, Enterprise Architecture
FORD
"We believe the Web Services Test Forum will provide a flexible testing environment for Fujitsu to verify the interoperability of its various SOA enterprise products and components with other vendor's products. Its informal setting and easy membership rules opens the forum to test scenarios driven by business users from all industries. Fujitsu believes that with this new initiative complementing the foundational work done in WS-I, all the facets of interoperability are now covered — from standards and profiles to products and uses cases."

Yasushi Ishida, Executive Architect
Software Unit, Fujitsu Limited
For the first time in the history of web services, WSTF permits interoperability testing based on typical business design models. This kind of realistic testing supplements synthetic test and flushes out platform as well as protocol issues in a very practical manner. External test sites, available to all to use, permits test and re-test without the necessity of time and resource consuming travel. Hitachi believes that tests of the form that WSTF is pioneering will add significantly to the robustness of the products of all participating vendors.

Takao Nakamura, Executive General Manager
Hitachi, Ltd., Software Division
"IBM's participation in the WSTF demonstrates our continued commitment to interoperability among key software partners by simplifying the integration process as well as aiding in the adoption of Web Services, " said Patricia Dudek, VP, WebSphere Server Development. "The WSTF has already demonstrated business value by identifying and resolving interoperability issues through its dynamic, customer focused, testing environment using the latest vendor platforms. Our software products and ultimately our customers will benefit from the work of this organization. With today's launch of the WSTF, we are excited about the prospect of new members joining and bringing more real-world scenarios into the testing environment - continuing to ensure we deliver to our customers the highest level of interoperability offerings."

Patricia Dudek, Vice President, WebSphere Server Development
IBM
"The Web Services Test Forum brings together the unique combination of real-world, multivendor interoperability testing and a charter that enables vendors and customers of all sizes to initiate, test and help resolve interoperability issues," said Steven G. Harris, senior vice president Java Platform Group, Oracle. "As a founding member of the WSTF, Oracle is further demonstrating its commitment to help customers realize the business benefits enabled by Web Services in the enterprise."

Steven G. Harris, Senior Vice President, Java Platform Group
Oracle
"We're glad to be working with IBM and others in WSTF because Web Services interoperability is critical to our customers and to the overall success of Web Services", said Dr Mark Little, Director of Standards for Red Hat, "Far too often in other areas interoperability is either an after thought or something that is attempted once during the standards adoption phase. WSTF offers an important way for us to ensure that Web Services interoperability is a continuous effort. It's important for us, our customers and the entire industry."

Dr. Mark Little, Director of Standards
Red Hat
"The Web Services Test Forum will serve as an important complement to the standards setting efforts of organizations like the WS-I," said Dr. Peter Kürpick, Chief Product Officer and member of the Software AG Executive Board. "Testing of interoperability in accordance with user-driven requirements will be a key focus of the organization. It will also deliver significant value by defining specific, real-world scenarios that maximize the coverage provided by existing standards. Success in these two endeavors will help to propel the full interoperability of disparate SOA platforms closer to reality."

Dr. Peter Kürpick, Chief Product Officer and member of the Software AG Executive Board
Software AG
"TIBCO sees the Web Services Test Forum (WSTF) as an important tool in fulfilling the promises of interoperability between different implementations in Web Services specifications," said Rourke McNamara, director of product marketing at TIBCO. "We believe that WSTF's approach of scenario based test development and execution is the right approach for interoperability testing because it reflects more closely real world deployment of Web Services."

Rourke McNamara, Director of Product Marketing
TIBCO

Prepared by Robin Cover for The XML Cover Pages archive. See details in the Cover Pages news story: "Web Services Test Forum (WSTF) Addresses End User Interoperability Scenarios."

SEARCH Advanced Search ABOUT Site Map CP RSS Channel Contact Us Sponsoring CP About Our Sponsors NEWS Cover Stories Articles & Papers Press Releases CORE STANDARDS XML SGML Schemas XSL/XSLT/XPath XLink XML Query CSS SVG TECHNOLOGY REPORTS XML Applications General Apps Government Apps Academic Apps EVENTS LIBRARY Introductions FAQs Bibliography Technology and Society Semantics Tech Topics Software Related Standards Historic	Web Services Test Forum (WSTF) Web Services Test Forum Launches to Improve Software and Web Services Interoperability December 8, 2008. The Web Services Test Forum (WSTF) launched today, providing an open community to improve the quality of the Web services standards, with initial membership from Active Endpoints, AIAG, Axway, CISCO, eviware, FORD Motor Company, Fujitsu, Hitachi, IBM, Oracle, Red Hat, Software AG, Teamlog, and TIBCO Software Inc. Using customer-based scenarios, interoperability is validated in a multi-vendor testing environment. Customers and vendors alike, independent of their geographic location, can dynamically test their applications against available implementations to ensure interoperability is preserved. As an open community, WSTF has made it easy to introduce new interoperability scenarios and approve work through simple majority governance. "As business demand for multi-enterprise process automation accelerates, the need to test community-based integration built on standards is critical," said Maureen Fleming, Program Director, Business Process Automation and Deployment at IDC. "The WSTF promises to be an important initiative for enterprises focused on improving the accuracy and lowering the cost of applications that require this type of interoperability." Interoperability is a critical component to the success of Web services standards. WSTF members plan to work closely with their customers to develop scenarios and fill a void by providing access to an open forum to test or validate applications and services. "The Web Services Test Forum (WSTF), an open organization consisting of representatives from industry, will play a key role in accelerating interoperability for Web services standards by not waiting for Web services standards to be approved before initiating testing based on customer scenarios", said Dan Toth, Manager, Enterprise Architecture at Ford. "It is very important that interoperability issues be identified as early as possible in order to eliminate obstacles to adopting Web services." Members can test their product implementations against other members' in an open environment. Providing access to continuously available services minimizes the need for each vendor or customer to set up multi-vendor test environments in house. This testing is intended to help organizations deliver higher quality products and open standards specifications, simplifying integration and improving interoperability for customers in heterogeneous environments. The Automotive Industry Association (AIAG) is the first industry association member of the WSTF. The AIAG joined WSTF to improve interoperability capability within the automotive messaging infrastructure. "AIAG's members operate with a complex set of inter-related processes, executing both internally and connecting externally to their partners. Interoperability is a critical success factor for the automotive messaging infrastructure," said Tim Fowler, Director, Supply Chain & e-Commerce, AIAG. "AIAG sees WSTF as the forum in which we can quickly validate interoperability requirements against a multi-vendor environment and translate the results into concrete plans for the continual improvement of the automotive messaging capability." Between the published scenarios and the ones under development, standards such as WSAddressing, WS-ReliableMessaging, WS-Security and WS-Transactions, are being validated by member's products with real world interoperability scenarios. The WSTF plans to also work with respective standards bodies to help speed the standardization process for emerging Web services standards. The WSTF initiative is open to all software vendors, service providers and customers interested in furthering Web services and their use throughout the industry. Members are able to recommend and initiate work on new scenarios, supporting both emerging specifications and approved standards. For more information, please visit www.wstf.org. For press and industry analyst inquiries, please contact publicrelations@wstf.org [See attached quote sheet from participating WSTF members...] Testimonials from Initial Participating WSTF Members "Active Endpoints is committed to driving the development of open industry standards and the widespread use of web services by promoting interoperability," said Michael Rowley, director of technology and strategy, Active Endpoints. "We believe that through the Web Services Test Forum, organizations can now cost effectively create and test open standards-based integrations, helping them to drive greater adoption and deliver higher-quality products to their customers through real-world testing scenarios." Mike Rowley, Director of Technology and Strategy Active Endpoints "AIAG's members operate with a complex set of inter-related processes, executing both internally and connecting externally to their partners. Interoperability is a critical success factor for the automotive messaging infrastructure", said Tim Fowler, Director, Supply Chain & e-Commerce, AIAG. "AIAG sees WSTF as the forum in which we can quickly validate interoperability requirements against a multi-vendor environment and translate the results into concrete plans for the continual improvement of the automotive messaging capability." Tim Fowler, Director, Supply Chain and e-Commerce AIAG "Axway favorably welcomes this new initiative to promote the interoperability of Web Services. We believe the freedom of proposition given to each member of the group, combined with the move towards real-life business use cases, guarantees faster, more concrete results for our clients. As soon as Axway's Synchrony V4.1 platform goes live, we will be happy to actively participate in the ongoing project." Meyniel Arnaud, Product Manger, Web Services Axway "eviware is proud to be part of WSTF, it's a great initiative", says Ole Matzura of eviware, "WSTF is a fantastic service to the Web Service Community". "It is good to see a group focused on the practical implications of the WS-Standards and how they affect interoperability", continues Mr. Matzura, "we have met this issue in our community and think WSTF delivers a great service and are happy to provide a contribution to the group." Ole Matzura, CTO eviware "The Web Services Test Forum (WSTF), an open organization consisting of representatives from industry, will play a key role in accelerating interoperability for Web services standards by not waiting for Web services standards to be approved before initiating testing based on customer scenarios", said Dan Toth, Manager, Enterprise Architecture at Ford. "It is very important that interoperability issues be identified as early as possible in order to eliminate obstacles to adopting Web services." Dan Toth, Manager, Enterprise Architecture FORD "We believe the Web Services Test Forum will provide a flexible testing environment for Fujitsu to verify the interoperability of its various SOA enterprise products and components with other vendor's products. Its informal setting and easy membership rules opens the forum to test scenarios driven by business users from all industries. Fujitsu believes that with this new initiative complementing the foundational work done in WS-I, all the facets of interoperability are now covered — from standards and profiles to products and uses cases." Yasushi Ishida, Executive Architect Software Unit, Fujitsu Limited For the first time in the history of web services, WSTF permits interoperability testing based on typical business design models. This kind of realistic testing supplements synthetic test and flushes out platform as well as protocol issues in a very practical manner. External test sites, available to all to use, permits test and re-test without the necessity of time and resource consuming travel. Hitachi believes that tests of the form that WSTF is pioneering will add significantly to the robustness of the products of all participating vendors. Takao Nakamura, Executive General Manager Hitachi, Ltd., Software Division "IBM's participation in the WSTF demonstrates our continued commitment to interoperability among key software partners by simplifying the integration process as well as aiding in the adoption of Web Services, " said Patricia Dudek, VP, WebSphere Server Development. "The WSTF has already demonstrated business value by identifying and resolving interoperability issues through its dynamic, customer focused, testing environment using the latest vendor platforms. Our software products and ultimately our customers will benefit from the work of this organization. With today's launch of the WSTF, we are excited about the prospect of new members joining and bringing more real-world scenarios into the testing environment - continuing to ensure we deliver to our customers the highest level of interoperability offerings." Patricia Dudek, Vice President, WebSphere Server Development IBM "The Web Services Test Forum brings together the unique combination of real-world, multivendor interoperability testing and a charter that enables vendors and customers of all sizes to initiate, test and help resolve interoperability issues," said Steven G. Harris, senior vice president Java Platform Group, Oracle. "As a founding member of the WSTF, Oracle is further demonstrating its commitment to help customers realize the business benefits enabled by Web Services in the enterprise." Steven G. Harris, Senior Vice President, Java Platform Group Oracle "We're glad to be working with IBM and others in WSTF because Web Services interoperability is critical to our customers and to the overall success of Web Services", said Dr Mark Little, Director of Standards for Red Hat, "Far too often in other areas interoperability is either an after thought or something that is attempted once during the standards adoption phase. WSTF offers an important way for us to ensure that Web Services interoperability is a continuous effort. It's important for us, our customers and the entire industry." Dr. Mark Little, Director of Standards Red Hat "The Web Services Test Forum will serve as an important complement to the standards setting efforts of organizations like the WS-I," said Dr. Peter Kürpick, Chief Product Officer and member of the Software AG Executive Board. "Testing of interoperability in accordance with user-driven requirements will be a key focus of the organization. It will also deliver significant value by defining specific, real-world scenarios that maximize the coverage provided by existing standards. Success in these two endeavors will help to propel the full interoperability of disparate SOA platforms closer to reality." Dr. Peter Kürpick, Chief Product Officer and member of the Software AG Executive Board Software AG "TIBCO sees the Web Services Test Forum (WSTF) as an important tool in fulfilling the promises of interoperability between different implementations in Web Services specifications," said Rourke McNamara, director of product marketing at TIBCO. "We believe that WSTF's approach of scenario based test development and execution is the right approach for interoperability testing because it reflects more closely real world deployment of Web Services." Rourke McNamara, Director of Product Marketing TIBCO Prepared by Robin Cover for The XML Cover Pages archive. See details in the Cover Pages news story: "Web Services Test Forum (WSTF) Addresses End User Interoperability Scenarios."