Technical Committee drafts for OASIS Web Services Distributed Management (WSDM) TC specifications have been released for public review. Comments are solicited from all interested parties through January 10, 2005. The public review is open to all potential users, developers and stakeholders, intended to improve the interoperability and quality of the WSDM specifications.

The WSDM Technical Committee has produced two companion specifications for Web Services Distributed Management. Management Using Web Services (MUWS) defines how management of any resource can be accessed via Web services protocols. Management of Web Services (WSDM-MOWS), based on the concepts and definitions expressed in MUWS, addresses the management of the Web services endpoints using Web services protocols.

The Management Using Web Services (MUWS) 1.0 specification, in two parts, "defines how to express the following manageability capabilities: identity, metrics, resource state, status, configuration, name correlation, and relationships. MUWS defines standard descriptive techniques for each of these including required base properties, operations, and notifications, as well as required metadata for each of these to aid introspection. MUWS 1.0 also defines standard management event formats to enhance interoperability and correlateability. It defines how to provide secure management. In addition MUWS 1.0 defines recommendations and interfaces for advertising and discovering resources."

OASIS sponsor level members supporting development of the specification through representation on the WSDM Technical Committee include: Actional Corporation; BEA Systems, Inc; BMC Software; Computer Associates; Dell; Fujitsu; Hewlett-Packard; Hitachi; IBM; Novell; Oracle; Tibco; and webMethods, Inc.

Bibliographic Information

• Web Services Distributed Management: Management of Web Services (WSDM-MOWS) 1.0. Edited by Igor Sedukhin (Computer Associates). Produced by members of the OASIS Web Services Distributed Management (WSDM) TC. OASIS Technical Committee Draft. December 10, 2004. Document identifier: 'cd-wsdm-mows-1.0'. 50 pages.

  "The Web Services Distributed Management (WSDM) specifications, as declared in the committee charter, define: (a) how management of any resource can be accessed via Web services protocols — Management Using Web Services, or MUWS, and (b) management of the Web services resources via the former — Management Of Web Services, or MOWS. This document is the WSDM specification defining MOWS."

• Web Services Distributed Management: Management Using Web Services (MUWS 1.0) Part 1. Edited by William Vambenepe (Hewlett-Packard). Produced by members of the OASIS Web Services Distributed Management (WSDM) TC. OASIS Technical Committee Draft. December 9, 2004. Document identifier: 'cd-wsdm-muws-part1-1.0'. 30 pages.

  There are two specifications produced by the Web Services Distributed Management technical committee: Management Using Web services (MUWS) and Management of Web services (MOWS). This document is part of MUWS. MUWS defines how an Information Technology resource connected to a network provides manageability interfaces such that the IT resource can be managed locally and from remote locations using Web services technologies. MUWS is composed of two parts. This document is MUWS part 1 and provides the fundamental concepts for management using Web services. MUWS part 2 provides specific messaging formats used to enable the interoperability of MUWS implementations. MUWS part 2 depends on MUWS part 1, while part 1 is independent from part 2.

• Web Services Distributed Management: Management Using Web Services (MUWS 1.0) Part 2. Edited by William Vambenepe (Hewlett-Packard). Produced by members of the OASIS Web Services Distributed Management (WSDM) TC. OASIS Technical Committee Draft. December 9, 2004. Document identifier: 'cd-wsdm-muws-part2-1.0'. 53 pages.

  "There are two specifications produced by the Web services Distributed Management technical committee: Management Using Web services (MUWS) and Management of Web services (MOWS). This document is part of MUWS. MUWS defines how an Information Technology resource connected to a network provides manageability interfaces such that the IT resource can be managed locally or from remote locations using Web services technologies. MUWS is composed of two parts. This document is MUWS part 2 and provides specific messaging formats used to enable the interoperability of MUWS implementations. MUWS part 1 provides the fundamental concepts for management using Web services. MUWS part 2 depends on MUWS part 1 while part 1 is independent of part 2."

From the OASIS WSDM TC FAQ Document

Q: What does the OASIS Web Services Distributed Management TC do?

A: The OASIS WSDM TC is defining standards for the use of web services within a management system. These break down into two (2) primary areas: using web services to perform management functions and the management of web services themselves.

Thus, The OASIS Web Services Distributed Management TC is defining two sets of specifications: Web Services Distributed Management: Management Using Web Services (MUWS) and Web Services Distributed Management: Management of Web Services (MOWS) specifications.

The first is for Management Using Web Services (often abbreviated as MUWS), defining a web service interface for management providers. This can be used to manage any manageable resource and any manager. WSDM MUWS 1.0 defines how to represent and access the manageability interfaces of resources as Web services. It is the foundation of enabling management applications to be built using Web services and allows resources to be managed by many managers with one set of instrumentation. This specification provides interoperable, base manageability for monitoring and control managers using Web services. WSDM MUWS 1.0 has been defined in two specifications, MUWS Part 1, which defines the base architectural concepts and required components, and MUWS Part 2 which defines standard composeable support for manageability capabilities.

The second is for Management Of Web Services (MOWS), defining a specialization for the case where the manageable resource is a web service. Specifically, WSDM MOWS defines the manageability model for managing Web services as a resource and how to describe and access that manageability using MUWS.

The WSDM TC expects that providers of management for resources other than web services will provide analogous specializations their respective manageable resources...

WSDM-MOWS Overview

From the "Introduction" and "Architecture" sections of Web Services Distributed Management: Management of Web Services (WSDM-MOWS) 1.0"

Web services are an integral part of the IT landscape, and, as such, are vital resources to many organizations. Web services may interact with other Web services and are used in business processes. Interacting Web services form a logical network which may span enterprise boundaries. Managing such a logical network is critical for organizations that use Web services to automate and integrate various internal functions, and deal with partners and clients electronically. To manage the Web services network, one needs to manage the components that form the network — the Web services endpoints. This part of the WSDM specification addresses management of the Web services endpoints using Web services protocols...

Management of Web services (MOWS) is an application of Management using Web services (MUWS) to the resources which are elements of the Web Services Architecture. This WSDM specification defines how the manageability of Web service endpoints and resources exposed as Web services can be accessed via Web services. In order to achieve this goal, MOWS is based on the MUWS specifications, and the architecture, definitions and dependencies thereof...

Application of the WSDM architecture concepts (Section 2 of the MUWS specification part 1) to the management of Web services could be described as follows... A manageability Web service endpoint (or, shortly, manageability endpoint) provides access to the manageable Web service endpoint resource (a manageable resource, in terms of MUWS). A manageable Web service endpoint (or, shortly, manageable endpoint) could be, for example, an endpoint of an order entry Web service for which received messages could be counted and reported to the manageability consumers. Following the WSDM concepts, the manageability consumer discovers the manageability endpoint and exchanges messages with it in order to request information, subscribe to events or control the manageable endpoint resource...

An interesting peculiarity of the MOWS subject domain is that a manageability endpoint and a manageable endpoint are both Web services endpoints, and therefore could be the same endpoint or could be different endpoints. In other words, manageability consumers and regular Web service consumers could target their messages to the same or to different endpoints. Either of the approaches is allowed by the MOWS architecture and the implementation choices are transparent for manageability consumers (and Web service consumers, for that matter)...

WSDM allows a resource and all of its services to be manageable in a standard and interoperable manner. A resource may support both manageability and functional capabilities. For example, a printer can obviously print, but the same printer may also be able to indicate if it is on-line and may be able to notify when the toner is running out. A manageable resource may allow access to its manageability capabilities and functional capabilities via Web services. Web services represent a composition of manageable and functional qualities of a given resource...

Manageability consumers might take advantage of a composition of manageability and functional capabilities: (1) management-oriented consumers gain visibility into functional aspects of a resource (2) business-oriented consumers gain visibility into management aspects of a resource. For example, a Web services-based business process may involve a selection of an on-line printer with good amount of toner in order to print an urgent report for executives.

Composeability makes it easy for implementers of resource services to offer an appropriate set of functional capabilities along with an appropriate set of manageability capabilities guided by the appropriate model for authorization of these requests..."

WSDM-MUWS Overview

Management Using Web Services (MUWS) enables management of distributed information technology (IT) resources using Web services. Many distributed IT resources use different management interfaces. By leveraging Web service technology, MUWS enables easier and more efficient management of IT resources. This is accomplished by providing a flexible, common framework for manageability interfaces that leverage key features of Web services protocols. Universal management and interoperability across the many and various types of distributed IT resources can be achieved using MUWS.

The types of management capabilities exposed by MUWS are the management capabilities generally expected in systems that manage distributed IT resources. Examples of manageability functions that can be performed via MUWS include: (1) monitoring the quality of a service; (2) enforcing a service level agreement; (3) controlling a task; (4) managing a resource lifecycle...

This WSDM specification (MUWS) defines how the ability to manage, or, how the manageability of, an arbitrary resource can be made accessible via Web services. In order to achieve this goal, 199 MUWS is based on a number of Web services specifications, mainly for messaging, description, 200 discovery, accessing properties, and notifications...

A Web service endpoint provides access to a manageable resource. An example of a manageable resource is a printer that indicates when its toner is low, or, a magnetic storage disk that reports its internal temperature.

A manageability consumer discovers the Web service endpoint and exchanges messages with the endpoint in order to request information, subscribe to events, or, control the manageable resource associated with the endpoint. An example of a manageability consumer is a management system, or, a business automation process, or simply, any Web service application.

In order to discover the Web service endpoint providing access to a particular manageable resource, a manageability consumer first obtains an Endpoint Reference (EPR), as defined by the WS-Addressing specification, and then obtains any other required descriptions, including, but not limited to, a WSDL document, an XML Schema, or a policy document. MUWS uses the same mechanisms, for obtaining EPRs and their associated descriptions, as used by regular Web service implementations, and their applications. A Web service endpoint providing access to some manageable resource is called a manageability endpoint.

To exchange messages with a manageability endpoint, a manageability consumer needs to understand all of the required descriptions for the endpoint. The manageability consumer sends messages targeted to the manageable resource by using information contained in the EPR, for example, an address and some reference properties (see WS-Addressing)...

WSDM TC Specifications (Prose, XSDs, WSDLs)

MUWS v1.0 Part 1 Specification:
http://www.oasis-open.org/apps/org/workgroup/wsdm/download.php/10558/cd-wsdm-muws-part1-1.0.pdf
Also: http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/download.php/10558/cd-wsdm-muws-part1-1.0.pdf
Local: http://xml.coverpages.org/WSDMv10-CD-10572-MUWS1.pdf

MUWS v1.0 Part 1 Schema:
http://www.oasis-open.org/apps/org/workgroup/wsdm/download.php/10552/wsdm-muws-part1.xsd
Also: http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/download.php/10552/wsdm-muws-part1.xsd
Local: http://xml.coverpages.org/WSDMv10-CD-muws-part1.xsd

MUWS v1.0 Schema:
http://www.oasis-open.org/apps/org/workgroup/wsdm/download.php/10553/wsdm-pbm.xsd
Also: http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/download.php/10553/wsdm-pbm.xsd
Local: http://xml.coverpages.org/WSDMv10-CD-pbm.xsd

MUWS v1.0 Part 2 Specification:
http://www.oasis-open.org/apps/org/workgroup/wsdm/download.php/10557/cd-wsdm-muws-part2-1.0.pdf
Also: http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/download.php/10356/wd-wsdm-muws-part2-1.0-20041202.pdf
http://xml.coverpages.org/WSDMv10-CD-10572-MUWS2.pdf

MUWS v1.0 Part 2 Schema:
http://www.oasis-open.org/apps/org/workgroup/wsdm/download.php/10554/wsdm-muws-part2.xsd
Also: http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/download.php/10554/wsdm-muws-part2.xsd
Local: http://xml.coverpages.org/WSDMv10-CD-muws-part2.xsd

MUWS v1.0 Part 2 WSDL:
http://www.oasis-open.org/apps/org/workgroup/wsdm/download.php/10555/wsdm-muws-part2.wsdl
Also: http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/download.php/10555/wsdm-muws-part2.wsdl
Local: http://xml.coverpages.org/WSDMv10-CD-muws-part2.wsdl

MUWS v1.0 Part 2 Events Schema:
http://www.oasis-open.org/apps/org/workgroup/wsdm/download.php/10556/wsdm-muws-part2-events.xml
Also: http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/download.php/10556/wsdm-muws-part2-events.xml
Local: http://xml.coverpages.org/WSDMv10-CD-muws-part2-events.xml

MOWS v1.0 Specification:
http://www.oasis-open.org/apps/org/workgroup/wsdm/download.php/10567/cd-wsdm-mows-1.0.pdf
Also: http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/download.php/10567/cd-wsdm-mows-1.0.pdf
Local: http://xml.coverpages.org/WSDMv10-CD-10572-MOWS.pdf

MOWS v1.0 Schema:
http://www.oasis-open.org/apps/org/workgroup/wsdm/download.php/10563/wsdm-mows.xsd
Also: http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/download.php/10563/wsdm-mows.xsd
Local: http://xml.coverpages.org/WSDMv10-CD-mows.xsd

MOWS v1.0 WSDL:
http://www.oasis-open.org/apps/org/workgroup/wsdm/download.php/10564/wsdm-mows.wsdl
Also: http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/download.php/10564/wsdm-mows.wsdl
Local: http://xml.coverpages.org/WSDMv10-CD-mows.wsdl

MOWS v1.0 Schema:
http://www.oasis-open.org/apps/org/workgroup/wsdm/download.php/10562/wsdm-mows-events.xml
Also: http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/download.php/10562/wsdm-mows-events.xml
Local: http://xml.coverpages.org/WSDMv10-CD-mows-events.xml