XML and Web Services In The News - Tuesday 25 February 2003

XACML -- A No-Nonsense Developer's Guide
Vance McCarthy, Integration Developer News
OASIS has adopted XACML 1.0 as its first cut at an open standard to help developers build interoperable access controls security for XML documents and end-to-end transactions. XACML defines and describes "layering" between XML entities to clearly distinguish technologies that: create policy; collect the data required for policy evaluation; evaluate policy; and enforce policy.

Sun to Deliver Software to Schools
Darryl K. Taft
Sun has announced a program to donate $1 billion worth of software to educational and research institutions. The portfolio includes a range of offerings from Sun, including the Solaris 9 operating system, the Sun ONE Starter kit, Sun ONE Studio application development tools, Sun ONE Web Services Development products, the GNOME open-source Linux desktop, StarOffice software and Sun Ray appliances.

Web Services: Jam Today, not Tomorrow
Neil McEvoy, Line56
A key challenge is making Web Services technology pay for itself in the short term while securing the long-term strategic future of the enterprise. The service-oriented architecture creates an environment in which consistent, open standards are used to define how each resource can be 'plugged in' and service-enabled.

Microsoft's Unified App Goals Comes Into View. XML Drives Development of Tools, InfoPath.
Ed Scannell, Mark Jones, and Paul Krill. InfoWorld
Through its fervent adoption of XML, Microsoft is edging closer to crystallizing its long-held dream of building bridges that foster seamless transport of data between its suite of desktop applications and back-end applications.

Tracking Web Service Changes
Paula Musich, eWEEK
Confignia is configuration and change-management software designed for Java 2 Enterprise Edition Web applications environments; it can automatically discover, map and track physical and logical elements of a Web service. It also shows the interdependencies of applications and infrastructure services.