Update 2004-08-24: The three WS-I profiles were approved for Final Material Status. See the announcement "WS-I Promotes Profiles to Final Material Status. Basic Profile 1.1, Attachments Profile 1.0, and Simple SOAP Binding Profile 1.0 Approved by WS-I Membership. WS-I Charters Working Group to Address XML Schema."

Board Approval Drafts have been issued for WS-I Basic Profile Version 1.1, WS-I Simple SOAP Binding Profile Version 1.0, and WS-I Attachments Profile Version 1.0.

In the WS-I (Web Services Interoperability Organization) specification development process, a Board Approval Draft is a draft that "has been approved for publication by the Board of Directors, and is submitted for consideration by the Membership, and for public comment; it is a work in progress, and should not be considered as final; other documents may supersede this document."

According to an overview from Christopher Ferris (IBM; co-editor on two of the Approval Drafts), the approved documents "are now before the WS-I membership for review" and are expected to reach final approval later in August 2004. Once approved by the WS-I membership, the documents becomes WS-I Final Material. Testing Tools and Sample Application implementations for these profiles will enter their own approval cycles in the near future."

The WS-I Basic Profile 1.1 consists of "a set of non-proprietary Web services specifications, along with clarifications, refinements, interpretations and amplifications of those specifications which promote interoperability." The WS-I Simple SOAP Binding Profile 1.0 "is derived from those Basic Profile 1.0 requirements related to the serialization of the envelope and its representation in the message, incorporating any errata to date. These requirements have been factored out of the Basic Profile 1.1 to enable other Profiles to be composable with it." Attachments Profile Version 1.0 profile "complements the WS-I Basic Profile 1.1 to add support for conveying interoperable SOAP Messages with Attachments-based attachments with SOAP messages."

The overview provided by Ferris clarifies that WS-I "did not choose to produce multiple profiles arbitrarily. The initial intent was to add support for SOAP with Attachments to the Basic Profile 1.0 and to call the new profile Basic Profile 1.1. However, for a variety of reasons this approach proved to be infeasible. The three new profiles address both the need to address the customer requirement to provide guidance on the interoperable use of attachments today and the need to accommodate future bindings for technologies such as the W3C XML Protocol WG's MTOM and XOP."

In essence, "the Basic Profile was re-architected to enable the composition of profiles that supported multiple bindings such as SOAP over HTTP, SOAP Messages with Attachments over HTTP and eventually MTOM/XOP over HTTP. It is conceivable that there might be other bindings in the future. The binding-specific requirements have been separated into their own profiles, each with its own conformance claim, and the testing tools have been modified to enable composition of the Test Assertion Documents (TAD) such that conformance to a set of relevant profiles can be measured."

As a result, a Web service (and its artifacts) that conforms to the new BP1.1 plus SSBP1.0 profiles is basically equivalent to a claim of conformance to BP1.0 plus its published errata. Conversely, if your Web service(s) were conformant to BP1.0, then it is most likely that it's also conformant to the composition of BP1.1 plus SSBP1.0. To be certain, you should test your Web service and its artifacts against the new release of the WS-I Testing Tools and corresponding BP1.1 and SSBP1.0 TAD(s) when they are released."

Bibliographic Information

• Basic Profile Version 1.1. WS-I Approval Draft. 2004-07-21. Edited by Keith Ballinger, Microsoft (1.0); David Ehnebuske, IBM (1.0); Christopher Ferris, IBM; Martin Gudgin, Microsoft (1.0); Canyang Kevin Liu, SAP; Mark Nottingham, BEA Systems; Prasad Yendluri, webMethods. Version URL: http://www.ws-i.org/Profiles/BasicProfile-1.1-2004-07-21.html. Latest version URL: http://www.ws-i.org/Profiles/BasicProfile-1.1.html. Administrative contact: secretary@ws-i.org. Copyright (c) 2002-2004 by The Web Services-Interoperability Organization (WS-I) and Certain of its Members.

  "This document defines the WS-I Basic Profile 1.1, consisting of a set of non-proprietary Web services specifications, along with clarifications, refinements, interpretations and amplifications of those specifications which promote interoperability...

  This Profile is derived from the Basic Profile 1.0 by incorporating any errata to date and separating out those requirements related to the serialization of envelopes and their representation in messages. Such requirements are now part of the Simple SOAP Binding Profile 1.0, identified with a separate conformance claim. This separation is made to facilitate composability of Basic Profile 1.1 with any profile that specifies envelope serialization, including the Simple SOAP Binding Profile 1.0 and the Attachments Profile 1.0. A combined claim of conformance to both the Basic Profile 1.1 and the Simple SOAP Binding Profile 1.0 is roughly equivalent to a claim of conformance to the Basic Profile 1.0 plus published errata.

  This Profile, composed with the Simple SOAP Binding Profile 1.0 supercedes the Basic Profile 1.0. The Attachments Profile 1.0 adds support for SOAP with Attachments, and is intended to be used in combination with this Profile.

• Simple SOAP Binding Profile Version 1.0. WS-I Approval Draft. 2004-07-21. Edited by Mark Nottingham (BEA Systems). Version URL: http://www.ws-i.org/Profiles/SimpleSoapBindingProfile-1.0-2004-07-21.html. Latest version URL: http://www.ws-i.org/Profiles/SimpleSoapBindingProfile-1.0.html. Copyright (c) 2002-2004 by The Web Services-Interoperability Organization (WS-I) and Certain of its Members.

  "This document defines the WS-I Simple SOAP Binding Profile 1.0, consisting of a set of non-proprietary Web services specifications, along with clarifications and amendments to those specifications which promote interoperability...

  This Profile is derived from those Basic Profile 1.0 requirements related to the serialization of the envelope and its representation in the message, incorporating any errata to date. These requirements have been factored out of the Basic Profile 1.1 to enable other Profiles to be composable with it. A combined claim of conformance to both the Basic Profile 1.1 and the Simple SOAP Binding Profile 1.0 is roughly equivalent to a claim of conformance to the Basic Profile 1.0. This Profile composed with the Basic Profile 1.1 supercedes the Basic Profile 1.0..."

• Attachments Profile Version 1.0 WS-I Approval Draft. 2004-07-21. Edited by Chris Ferris (IBM), Anish Karmarkar (Oracle Corp), and Canyang Kevin Liu (SAP AG) Version URL: http://www.ws-i.org/Profiles/AttachmentsProfile-1.0-2004-07-21.html. Latest version URL: http://www.ws-i.org/Profiles/AttachmentsProfile-1.0.html. Copyright (c) 2002-2004 by The Web Services-Interoperability Organization (WS-I) and Certain of its Members. All Rights Reserved.

  "This document defines the WS-I Attachments Profile 1.0, consisting of a set of non-proprietary Web services specifications, along with clarifications and amendments to those specifications that are intended to promote interoperability. This profile complements the WS-I Basic Profile 1.1 to add support for interoperable SOAP Messages with Attachments-based Web services..."

  This document defines the WS-I Attachments Profile 1.0, consisting of a set of non-proprietary Web services specifications, along with clarifications to and amplifications of those specifications that are intended to promote interoperability. This profile compliments the WS-I Basic Profile 1.1 to add support for conveying interoperable SOAP Messages with Attachments-based attachments with SOAP messages.

  SOAP Messages with Attachments (SwA) defines a MIME multipart/related structure for packaging attachments with SOAP messages. This profile complements the WS-I Basic Profile 1.1 to add support for conveying interoperable SwA-based attachments with SOAP messages..."

Editor's Overview of the Three WS-I Profiles

"The New WS-I Profiles Explained," by Chris Ferris (Senior Technical Staff Member, IBM Emerging Technology Group). August 10, 2004. Published on IBM developerWorks Library. Excerpts:

"Recently, the Web Services Interoperability Organization (WS-I) board approved the board approval drafts of the Basic Profile 1.1 (BP1.1), the Simple Soap Binding Profile 1.0 (SSBP1.0), and the Attachments Profile 1.0 (AP1.0). A board approval draft comprises work that the WS-I Working Group that produced the document has approved...

Many Web services developers and IT architects might wonder why WS-I published three profiles instead of simply incorporating the new support for SOAP Messages with Attachments and the WSDL1.1 MIME Binding Extension into a single profile. Others might wonder just what has changed between these new profiles and the Basic Profile 1.0 that was published as WS-I Final Material in August of 2003. In this paper, I explain the Basic Profile Working Group's rationale for making these changes and highlight any substantive changes...

Basically, if your Web service is not using attachments, then you would use the TAD composition of BP1.1 plus SSBP1.0 to test conformance. If you are using attachments, then you would use the TAD composition of BP1.1 plus AP1.0.

So, while there are now three profiles that cover roughly the same scope as the Basic Profile 1.0 (BP1.0), from the developer's perspective there are really only two meaningful compositions: BP1.1 plus SSBP1.0 and BP1.1 plus AP1.0.

Note also that Web services that use an alternate binding for SOAP, such as SOAP over FTP, JMS, or MQ, can use the BP1.1 stand-alone to assess conformance, which was not possible with BP1.0 because of the requirement to use SOAP/HTTP binding..." See the complete article for context and details.

From the Announcement 2004-08-24 'Final Material Status'

The Web Services Interoperability Organization (WS-I) today announced the publication of its Basic Profile 1.1, Attachments Profile 1.0 and Simple SOAP Binding Profile 1.0 as Final Material. The Final Material designation is applied to those deliverables that have been formally approved by the WS-I member community.

"WS-I understood from its members that existing Web services attachment specifications were increasingly presenting interoperability difficulties," said Chris Ferris, chair of the WS-I Basic Profile Working Group. "The new profiles provide Web services developers with a flexible mechanism for creating attachment-enabled applications with predictable interoperability."

Basic Profile 1.1: Basic Profile 1.1 describes how core Web services specifications should be used together to develop interoperable Web services. Specifically, the document consists of a set of nonproprietary Web services specifications and clarifications, refinements, interpretations and amplifications of them that promote interoperability.

To create version 1.1, the Basic Profile 1.0 was re-architected to relocate all binding-specific envelope serialization requirements to its own profile; the Simple Soap Binding Profile 1.0. This new structure enables the Basic Profile 1.1 to easily compose with any profile that specifies envelope serialization, including the Simple SOAP Binding Profile 1.0 and the Attachments Profile 1.0.

With the release of the profiles, Web services that use attachments can be tested for WS-I conformance with a composition of Basic Profile 1.1 and Attachments Profile 1.0. Those that do not use attachments can be tested for conformance with a composition of Basic Profile 1.1 and Simple SOAP Binding Profile 1.0. A claim of conformance to both the Basic Profile 1.1 and the Simple SOAP Binding Profile 1.0 will be equivalent to a claim of conformance to the Basic Profile 1.0 plus the published errata.

Simple SOAP Binding Profile 1.0: SOAP 1.1 defines an XML structure for transmitting messages, called the envelope. The Simple SOAP Binding Profile mandates the use of that structure and places certain constraints on its use. Simple SOAP Binding Profile 1.0 is derived from the Basic Profile 1.0 requirements related to the serialization of the envelope and its representation in the message.

Attachments Profile 1.0: SOAP Messages with Attachments (SwA) defines a MIME multipart/related structure for packaging attachments with SOAP messages. This profile complements the Basic Profile 1.1 to add support for conveying interoperable SwA-based attachments with SOAP messages.

Next Steps: WS-I is currently working to develop sample applications and testing tools for use with the newly approved Basic Profile 1.1, Attachments Profile 1.0 and Simple SOAP Binding Profile 1.0. In addition, at its recent community meeting, WS-I chartered a new working group, called the XML Schema Work Plan Working Group, to focus on collecting and understanding interoperability issues related to the use of XML Schema as the means by which application data is defined with the intent of determining the most suitable course of action for WS-I in addressing those concerns..."

About WS-I

"The Web Services Interoperability Organization is an open industry effort chartered to promote Web Services interoperability across platforms, applications, and programming languages. The organization brings together a diverse community of Web services leaders to respond to customer needs by providing guidance, recommended practices, and supporting resources for developing interoperable Web services.

The community of WS-I members includes software vendors of all sizes, enterprise customers, and many others interested in Web services. All community members are invited to actively participate in one or more Working Groups, based on their interest and expertise. Depending on the specific Working Group, effort will be led by individuals with a diverse set of skills — from developers, to testers, to business analysts and standards architects.

Deliverables: The organization's deliverables are targeted at proving resources for any Web services developer to create interoperable Web services, and verify that their results are compliant with both industry standards and WS-I recommended guidelines...

There is a strong, complementary relationship between WS-I and other organizations committed to the growth of Web Services, including our relationship to the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), and others.

Of the WS Basic Profile, each of the four specifications has been developed, or is currently managed by, other organizations. This profile includes XML Schema, SOAP, WSDL, and UDDI - adopting work emerging from both the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and UDDI.org. As more profiles are developed, specifications from additional organizations are likely to be adopted as well...

WS-I is committed to building strong relationships and adopt specifications developed by a wide array of organizations such as the IETF, OAGI, OASIS, OMG, UDDI, W3C, and many others. These organizations serve the needs of a vast range of communities and customer bases. It is the plan of WS-I to engage these groups and work together to best meet the needs of our customers..." [from About]