OASIS members have formed a new Framework for Web Services Implementation (FWSI) Technical Committee to produce guidelines that assist system integrators and software vendors in implementing Web Services solutions. The purpose of OASIS FWSI TC is to "facilitate implementation of robust Web Services by defining a practical and extensible methodology consisting of implementation processes and common functional elements that practitioners can adopt to create high quality Web Services systems without re-inventing them for each implementation. It attempts to solve the problem of the slow adoption of Web Services due to lack of methodologies to implement Web Services, and lack of understanding of whether solutions proposed by vendors have the necessary components to reliably implement an application based on Web Services."

The TC goals are to: "accelerate implementation of Web Services-based systems; improve the performance and robustness of such systems; improve understanding of Web Services implementations; reduce the complexity of such systems and hence reduce the developmental and maintenance efforts; and reduce the risk of implementation." Key deliverables of the TC include a Web Services Implementation Process Specification and a Web Services Functional Elements Specification.

Members of the new OASIS FWSI Technical Committee include CommerceNet, IDA, Information Technology Standards Committee of Singapore, RosettaNet, SIMTech, Sun Microsystems, Center for E-Commerce Infrastructure Development (CECID) at the University of Hong Kong, Yellow Dragon, and other OASIS members. The proposed TC Chairs are Dr. LEE Eng Wah, Singapore Institute of Manufacturing Technology and Mr. Roberto B. PASCUAL, Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore. The first meeting of the OASIS FWSI TC will be held December 8-92003 at the XML 2003 Conference in Philadelphia.

From the TC Proposal

The purpose of OASIS FWSI TC is to facilitate implementation of robust Web Services by defining a practical and extensible methodology consisting of implementation processes and common functional elements that practitioners can adopt to create high quality Web Services systems without re-inventing them for each implementation.

It solves the problem of the slow adoption of Web Services because of lack of methodologies to implement Web Services, and a lack of understanding of whether solutions proposed by vendors have the necessary components to reliably implement an application based on Web Services.

It is anticipated that the TC will establish liaisons with some of the key web services standards in interoperability, security, business process management and orchestration etc; in formulating the web service implementation process specification. Obviously criteria may have to be set to select the appropriate standards or specifications. However, the focus on the TC must be to determine the commonly used functional elements and specify the scope and purpose of the identified functional elements.

Proposed specifications include:

1. Web Services Implementation Process Specification. The TC will define an implementation process for Web Services by building on the work of existing standards. The implementation process specification will describe the common implementation steps needed to build robust Web Services within the context of a typical system lifecycle process using the Web Services Functional Elements. Web Services, being highly distributed in nature, do not lend themselves well to classical implementation processes. A model implementation process that is tried-and-tested will help practitioners in avoiding the common pitfalls of implementing Web Services.

2. Web Services Functional Elements Specification. The TC will specify a set of functional elements that practical implementations of Web Services-based systems will require. These functional elements form a basis for practitioners to instantiate into a technical architecture using the Web Services Implementation Process. It is the purpose of the TC to explore and define the right level of abstraction for these functional elements and to specify the purpose and scope of each functional element to facilitate efficient and effective implementation of Web Services.

Similar Work Done in Other OASIS TCs

The work done in this TC is similar to the following work:

1. Work done in OASIS TCs such as WS Security. The OASIS FWSI TC defines the functional elements that will be useful to most Web Services that are implemented. It does not define the standards for implementing the specific components -- TCs such as WS Security will handle that. The FWSI TC will be tapping on the specifications of various OASIS TCs in order to know the capabilities that each functional element will have. Back to the analogy of the cake recipe, the individual TCs in OASIS will define how to produce the eggs, flour, sugar etc, which the recipe does not deal with.

2. Work done in WS-I. WS-I defines the choice of standards to be used for each component, as is shown in its Basic Profile release. It also defines the interoperability tests for these components. The components that form the functional elements in the OASIS FWSI TC's framework could be influenced by WS-I's recommendations, thus the work of WS-I would complement FWSI's work, but will not interfere with it. Using the cake recipe analogy, WS-I may recommend brands of sugar that are safe for consumption, and provide tests for that the sugar is edible, but the cake recipe will just require that the sugar being used in the ingredient is universally accepted as sugar.

Eligible Persons Committed to the Stated Meeting Schedule

• Dr. LEE Eng Wah, Singapore Institute of Manufacturing Technology (ewlee@simtech.a-star.edu.sg)
• Mr. Roberto B. PASCUAL, Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (roberto_b_pascual@ida.gov.sg)
• Mr. Andy TAN, Information Technology Standards Committee, Singapore (andytan@intrinix.com)
• Mr. TAN Kwang Han, Ecquaria Technologies (kwanghan@ecquaria.com)
• Mr. QUEK Choon Yang, Ecquaria Technologies (choonyang@ecquaria.com)
• Mr. CHENG Huang Kheng, Singapore Institute of Manufacturing Technology (jason@simtech.a-star.edu.sg)
• Ms. TAN Puay Siew, Singapore Institute of Manufacturing Technology (pstan@simtech.a-star.edu.sg)
• Mr. Sujamto PRASETIO, Sun Microsystems (sujamto.prasetio@sun.com)
• Ms. Cassandra Ong Sio Hue, eG Innovations Pte. Ltd (ongsiohue@eginnovations.com)
• Mr. Yong Inn Nam, ESS Software Pte. Ltd (inyong@essware.com)
• Mr. Kenneth Lim, Crimson Logic Pte Ltd (kennethlim@crimsonlogic.com)
• Mr. Amardeep Singh, Readiminds Systems and Services Pte Ltd (amardeep.singh@readiminds.com)
• Paul Tearnen, RosettaNet (paul.tearnen@rosettanet.org)

From the TC FAQ Document

Motivation for the Formation of the TC: "As part of its effort to accelerate the adoption of web services, the Java Smart Services Lab (JSSL) of Singapore has developed a Web Service Reference Architecture (WSRA). WSRA has two main parts (1) sets of relevant Guidelines and (2) Reference Implementation of Core Services... The website provides information relating to the idea of having functional elements as the building blocks for developing a web service enabled application..."

"Through the experience of developing WSRA and working with the industry in actual implementations of web service-enabled applications, it became apparent that web services implementation needs a lot of actual implementation guidelines and there are also a lot of commonalities that exist throughout these implementations. If harnessed properly, the movement towards getting web services to the mass market can be realised that much faster. As such, the thoughts for contributing this knowledge and harnessing the vast knowledge out there from all parts of the industry was mooted and hence the work towards the formation of this TC..."

"Essentially, the Guidelines are sets of best practices or experienced gained from implementing web services and harnessed from within JSSL and its technology partners; whilst the core services are sets of infrastructure software pieces that are identified and developed by JSSL. JSSL would like to contribute the experience and knowledge gained through the derivation of WSRA as initial input to this TC..." [adapted from the FWSI TC FAQ document]

From the TC Announcement

Members of the OASIS international standards consortium announced plans to collaborate on the development of a global Web services framework that will define a methodology for broad-based, multi-platform, vendor-neutral implementation. The new OASIS Framework for Web Services Implementation (FWSI) Technical Committee plans to design a template for Web services deployment, enabling systems integrators, software vendors, and in-house developers to deliver eCommerce solutions faster and easier.

"FWSI will define the functionality required to help people build robust applications for Web services and Service Oriented Architectures," said Roberto B. Pascual of the Singapore Government's Infocomm Development Authority (IDA), proposed co-chair of the OASIS FWSI Technical Committee. "It will speed adoption of Web services by tremendously reducing the risk, complexity, and implementation effort involved."

"The work of the OASIS FWSI Technical Committee will be analogous to creating a recipe for baking a cake," explained Dr. Lee Eng Wah, of the Singapore Institute of Manufacturing Technology (SIMTech), proposed co-chair of the OASIS FWSI Technical Committee. "We will first develop a set of implementation methodologies, which will be like cooking instructions. Then we will focus on designing a set of functional elements for Web services -- the ingredients for the cake."

Rather than define standards for implementing specific Web services components, FWSI will leverage applicable work within OASIS and other standards groups. Technical Committee members predict that the work of the WS-I Consortium will complement FWSI at OASIS.

"We are very pleased that the OASIS FWSI Technical Committee is being launched in Singapore and has the backing of so many companies and agencies here and around the world," said Patrick Gannon, president and CEO of OASIS, in an address today at the iX2003 conference. "By creating a library of core eCommerce Web services, FWSI will accelerate the deployment of Web services and Service Oriented Architectures into the critical eBusiness marketplace."