The XML development team at IBM alphaWorks has released a 'Web Services Invocation Framework' described as "a tool that provides a standard API for invoking services described in Web Services Description Language (WSDL), no matter how or where the services are provided. The WSIF architecture allows new bindings to be added at runtime. WSIF enables developers to interact with representations of Web services instead of working directly with the Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) APIs, which is the usual programming model. With WSIF, developers can work with the same programming model regardless of how the Web service is implemented and accessed. The WSIF architecture also allows stub-less invocation of Web services: no stub is generated, and the services can be dynamically invoked. WSIF is based on WSDL4J model 'JSR 110', but in simple usage cases, WSDL4J representation is hidden from the user by portType compiler. Currently, WSIF supports a subset of WSDL SOAP binding (it implements the RPC-oriented part) and very simple Java binding that will be improved in future releases of WSIF."

WSIF description from the FAQ: "A WSIF provider is basically an implementation of WSDL binding that will execute on the user's behalf a WSDL operation through a binding-specific protocol... WSIF is WSDL-driven and it provides a uniform interface for invoking services simply by using WSDL documents. WSIF was designed to work both in unmanaged environments (stand-alone) and inside containers; generated stubs use JNDI to find its implementation, and only if this lookup is unsuccessful do they revert to pre-compiled WSDL document (or WSDL4J definition passed by the user)... WSIFPort represents a service port supporting a specific portType. It contains methods corresponding to request-response operations (executeRequestResponse) and one-way operations (executeInputOnly). WSIFPortFactory supports binding to specific port of a service. There are currently two WSIFPortFactory implementations: WSIFStaticPortFactory and WSIFDynamicPortFactory..."

WSIF developers include Michael Beisiegel, Matthew J. Duftler, Paul Fremantle, Nirmal Mukhi, Piotr Przybylski, Aleksander A. Slominski, and Sanjiva Weerawarana.