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XML and Web Services In The News - 13 April 2006
Provided by OASIS |
Edited by Robin Cover
This issue of XML.org Daily Newslink is sponsored by Innodata Isogen
HEADLINES:
SPML 2.0 Ratified as OASIS Standard
Paul F. Roberts, InfoWorld
In a move that could open the door to more user account provisioning
in the enterprise, the OASIS consortium approved the SPML (Service
Provisioning Markup Language) version 2.0 specification as an official
OASIS standard on Tuesday. OASIS' Provisioning Services Technical
Committee approved SPML 2.0, an XML (Extensible Markup Language)
framework for managing resources, such as user accounts and privileges,
between networks and applications used by different organizations. The
new standard includes such features as password management and user
account deprovisioning that many companies need to manage access to
sensitive applications and network resources. The standard was developed
jointly by representatives from OASIS member companies such as BEA, BMC,
Computer Associates, IBM, Oracle, Sun MicroSystems, and others. SPML
2.0 builds on the SPML 1.0 standard, which was approved in November 2003.
See also: the announcement
Sun Open-Sources Enterprise Toolset
Darryl K. Taft, eWEEK
Sun Microsystems announced on April 11 that it has open-sourced key
components of its Sun Java Studio Enterprise toolset as a project on
its NetBeans.org site. The new project will be released as the
NetBeans Enterprise Pack and UML (Unified Modeling Language) features
with XML and SOA development functionality. The NetBeans Enterprise
Pack runs on top of the NetBeans 5.5 IDE. Features in the NetBeans
Enterprise Pack include: Two-way UML modeler for architecting and
reverse engineering complex enterprise applications; a set of XML
infrastructure and visual editing tools to help developers to manage
their XML files; and orchestration and SOA tools -- largely tools from
Sun's acquisition of SeeBeyond -- for building composite applications.
Sun has made much of its software available free to customers and has
committed to open-sourcing its entire software portfolio.
SAML 2.0 Profile of XACML
Anne Anderson (ed.), OASIS XACML TC Working Draft
The "SAML 2.0 Profile of XACML" specification defines a profile for
the use of the OASIS Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML)
Version 2.0 to carry XACML 2.0 policies, policy queries and responses,
authorization decisions, and authorization decision queries and
responses. It also describes the use of SAML 2.0 Attribute Assertions
with XACML. This document, produced for the OASIS eXtensible Access
Control Markup Language (XACML) Technical Committee revises and
updates the OASIS Standard SAML 2.0 Profile of XACML 2.0. It
incorporates the errata found in the OASIS Standard SAML 2.0 Profile
of XACML 2.0 and also defines all the types and elements needed to
truly implement the XACML extensions to SAML. New functionality that
was not in the OASIS Standard is: (1) XACML policies MAY be included
in an XACMLAuthzDecisionQuery that MAY be used by the PDP to evaluate
the Request Context that is in the query. (2) An XACMLAdvice element
is defined for inclusion in an XACMLAssertion that allows
XACMLAssertions to be used as advice for any SAML or XACML Statement.
See also: the XACML TC
How to Implement the SOA Reference Model
Duane Nickull, LooselyCoupled.com
A previous article in the series introduced the OASIS Reference Model
(RM) for SOA as an abstract framework for understanding significant
relationships among the entities in a service oriented environment. The
current article explores how to use the model during the architectural
process. The reference model itself consists of a minimal set of
unifying concepts, axioms and relationships -- independent of specific
standards, technologies, implementations, or other concrete details.
Concrete architecture built using this reference model will likely
introduce additional elements such as security, management, service
composition and more. In fact, it is envisioned that architects may use
several reference models for a specific architecture including network
models such as the OSI 7 layer stack, and others. The current draft of
the Reference Model introduces conceptual elements of the model for a
service, along with visibility, interaction, service description, real
world effect and the execution context. We will illustrate how
architects may wish to use this model to construct their service
architecture.
See also: OASIS SOA Reference Model TC
Defining N-ary Relations on the Semantic Web
Natasha Noy and Alan Rector (eds), W3C Working Group Note
W3C has announced the publication of a Note which presents ontology
patterns for representing n-ary relations in RDF and OWL; it also
discusses what users must consider when choosing these patterns. In
Semantic Web languages such as RDF and OWL, a property is a binary
relation: it is used to link two individuals or an individual and a
value. However, in some cases, the natural and convenient way to
represent certain concepts is to use relations to link an individual
to more than just one individual or value. These relations are called
n-ary relations. For example, we may want to represent properties of
a relation, such as our certainty about it, severity or strength of
a relation, relevance of a relation, and so on. Another example is
representing relations among multiple individuals, such as a buyer,
a seller, and an object that was bought when describing a purchase
of a book. The Note has been produced by the W3C Semantic Web Best
Practices and Deployment Working Group, part of the W3C Semantic Web
Activity. This document is one of a set of documents providing an
introduction and overview of ontology design patterns produced by the
SWBPD Working Group's Ontology Engineering and Patterns Task Force.
See also: W3C Semantic Web
Q&A: New Mass. CIO Offers Update on Open Document Format Plans
Carol Sliwa, ComputerWorld
This article presents details of an interview with Louis Gutierrez, CIO
of the Information Technology Division (ITD) of Massachusetts. In his
first in-depth interview since moving into the new job on February 6,
2006, Gutierrez added that he doesn't foresee the state taking a 'wait
position' with respect to its ODF policy, which applies to the state's
executive branch: "... When you do government policy and you weigh a lot
of things, the pressure comes from trying to stay true to what
government is about. In this [ODF] case, I think there's a very
principled standard that the administration has put forward with regard
to open document formats and every manner of interest that come into a
debate. There is a lot of pressure in this situation, but the thing that
I need to stay true to are the policy objectives, recalling that
government is a purchaser. Government sometimes sets requirements for
new product or new capability. And government really has an obligation
to make itself open both to its citizens and to fair competition... We
are looking for document standards that are set by standards authorities
that are clear and documented; that are easily available under the right
licensing and covenant not-to-sue terms for any other developers to work
with and to develop with; and that are maintained by standards bodies,
not individual vendors. We have not said that the policy will be
restricted to only one standard over time. But we care very much that
our policy objectives are met by whatever standard is looked at. As to
the moves that Microsoft has been making with regard to its own open XML
format, I think there has been progress. The move from legacy formats to
XML formats, improved licensing and covenant not-to-sue provisions that
apply to these formats, the submission of the format to a standards
body, the incorporation of a "save to PDF" -- these truly are positive
movements. We are very encouraged by these things, and when a
standardization process is complete, we'll look forward to evaluating
the situation to see if it meets the policy requirements.
See also: ODF references
The DocBook Schema Version 5.0b5
Norman Walsh (ed), OASIS TC Working Draft
Members of the OASIS DocBook TC have announced the release of "The
DocBook Schema" specification V5.0b5. "DocBook is a general purpose
XML schema particularly well suited to books and papers about computer
hardware and software, though it is by no means limited to these
applications. The Version 5.0 release is a complete rewrite of DocBook
in RELAX NG. The intent of this rewrite is to produce a schema that is
true to the spirit of DocBook while simultaneously removing
inconsistencies that have arisen as a natural consequence of DocBook's
long, slow evolution. The Technical Committee has taken this opportunity
to simplify a number of content models and tighten constraints where
RELAX NG makes that possible. The Technical Committee provides the
DocBook 5.0 schema in other schema languages, including W3C XML Schema
and an XML DTD, but the RELAX NG Schema is now the normative schema. The
OASIS DocBook TC was chartered to develop and maintain the DocBook
family of specifications and to continue to support its ever growing user
base. In particular, the XML and SGML DocBook schemas, a suite of
extension modules, and a simplified authoring subset of DocBook. The
Technical Committee plans to support a variety of schema languages and
may develop additional modules and derived document types.
See also: the announcement
Web 2.0: First of All, What Is It?
Paul Krill, InfoWorld
IT dignitaries discussing Web 2.0 in the enterprise during a panel
session Wednesday debated, for starters, what exactly Web 2.0 is and
then pondered where it is headed. Officials including Scott Dietzen,
president and CTO of Zimbra and former CTO of BEA Systems, and Jeff
Nolan, director of the Apollo Strategy Group at SAP Ventures, covered
the topic of Web 2.0 at an IBDNetwork event. Nolan: "Web 2.0 is REST
(Representational State Transfer)," featuring loosely coupled
applications and the notion that applications do not have to be hard-
wired together... Collaboration is a big factor in Web 2.0 but not
just blogs and wikis, he said. Also part of Web 2.0 is the ability to
deliver ad hoc, user-generated applications but not necessarily mashups,
he said. Blogs and wikis, meanwhile, could be a precursor to something
more compelling..." Dietzen: "Whereas Web 1.0 was about technologies
such as HTML, HTTP, and SSL, Web 2.0 is more about technologies such
as AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML), XML, and SOA as well as
applications such as Flash... With Web 2.0, CIOs and CTOs are wondering
how they can improve their own internal-facing applications, said
Todd Burke, an enterprise sales official at Adobe Systems." Dietzen
stressed that boosting productivity and cutting down the time users
must spend on e-mail will be part of Web 2.0.
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