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XML and Web Services In The News - 20 December 2006
Provided by OASIS |
Edited by Robin Cover
This issue of XML Daily Newslink is sponsored by Sun Microsystems, Inc.
HEADLINES:
W3C Issues SOAP 1.2 Specifications as Proposed Edited Recommendations
Martin Gudgin, Marc Hadley, Noah Mendelsohn (et al., eds), W3C PERs
W3C has announced the publication of four Proposed Edited
Recommendations for SOAP 1.2, all Second Editions. "SOAP Version 1.2
Part 0: Primer (Second Edition)" is a non-normative document intended
to provide an easily understandable tutorial on the features of SOAP
Version 1.2. In particular, it describes the features through various
usage scenarios, and is intended to complement the normative text
contained in Part 1 and Part 2 of the SOAP 1.2 specifications. This
second edition includes additional material on the SOAP Message
Transmission Optimization Mechanism (MTOM), the XML-binary Optimized
Packaging (XOP) and the Resource Representation SOAP Header Block
(RRSHB) specifications. "Part 1: Messaging Framework" defines, using
XML technologies, an extensible messaging framework containing a
message construct that can be exchanged over a variety of underlying
protocols. "SOAP Version 1.2 Part 2: Adjuncts" defines a set of
adjuncts that may be used with SOAP Version 1.2 Part 1: Messaging
Framework. "SOAP Version 1.2 Specification Assertions and Test
Collection" draws on assertions found in the SOAP Version 1.2
specifications, and provides a set of tests in order to show whether
the assertions are implemented in a SOAP processor. A SOAP 1.2
implementation that passes all of the tests specified in this document
may claim to conform to the SOAP 1.2 Test Suite, 2006 12 19. It is
incorrect to claim to be compliant with the SOAP Version 1.2
specifications merely by passing successfully all the tests provided
in this test suite. It is also incorrect to claim that an
implementation is non compliant with the SOAP Version 1.2
specifications based on its failure to pass one or more of the tests
in this test suite.
See also: the W3C news item
How to Solve the Business Standards Dilemma: The CCTS Standards Stack
Gunther Stuhec and Mark Crawford, SAP
The United Nations Centre for Trade Facilitation and Electronic Business
(UN/CEFACT) Core Components Technical Specification (CCTS) provides a
new paradigm in semantic modeling methodologies for business information.
This article describes the CCTS standards stack from two perspectives --
a business expert's top-down perspective and a more technical ISO
14462-based "Business Operational View and Functional Service View"
perspective. CCTS is gaining widespread adoption by private and public
sector organizations, as well as horizontal and vertical standards
organizations. CCTS moves the concept of data interoperability to a new
level. However, syntax-independent CCTS itself is not enough to solve
the business standards problem. Rather, CCTS is part of a larger set of
standards. These standards collectively form the CCTS standards stack,
which is required for realizing robust and commonly understandable
business data at the semantic and technical syntax level. The key aspects
of CCTS are: conceptual and context-specific model views, naming,
structuring, storage, and discovery. The Business Operational View
describes the semantics of business data in enterprise service interfaces
and associated data interchanges. It includes rules for business
transactions that are described by enterprise service interfaces, such
as operational conventions, agreements, and mutual obligations. In
terms of CCTS, the Business Operational View consists of the following
syntax-independent and business semantic-oriented CCTS-based standards
that are required for modeling enterprise service interfaces on a
semantic level. The Functional Service View addresses the supporting
services required to meet the functional needs of Open-EDI. The
Functional Service View focuses on requisite functional capabilities,
service interfaces, and protocols. In terms of CCTS specifications,
the CCTS Functional Service View includes the syntax-dependent and
functional service-oriented standards required for actual implementation
in applications and creation of B2B technical exchange interfaces. As
part of its overarching effort to leverage industry standards to
improve the functionality and value of SAP solutions for customers and
partners, SAP has established implementation strategies which
incorporate the CCTS standards stack.
See also: UN/CEFACT CCTS
OGC and Web3D Consortium Collaborate on Web-Based 3D Technologies
Staff, Open Geospatial Consortium Announcement
The Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc. (OGC) and the Web3D Consortium
announced a new memorandum of understanding describing collaborative
work to advance standards supporting web-based 3D visualization,
modeling and simulation. Among the many benefits that will derive from
this collaboration will be improved standards-based, location enabled
3D web services to support urban planning; architecture, engineering
and construction; climate prediction, homeland security, emergency
management, defense and intelligence, and other capabilities. Mark
Reichardt, President of the OGC: The OGC membership, working with ISO
TC/211 and other standards groups, has helped to make standards-based
interoperable geospatial services a reality on the Web. This agreement
will enable OGC and Web3D to work more cooperatively on the development
and promotion of standards for improved application of web-based,
location enabled 3D visualization, modeling and simulation". Alan
Hudson, President of Web 3D, noted that "The OGC and the Web3D
Consortium envision the synthesis of 2D maps with content-rich 3D
immersive worlds. To that end, we believe the incorporation of
interactive, internet based 3D graphics is the next logical step that
will benefit users with a richer, more meaningful geospatial
experience." OpenGIS Specifications support interoperable solutions
that "geo-enable" the Web, location-based services, and mainstream IT.
Web3D Consortium is utilizing its broad-based industry support to
continue developing the X3D specification, for communicating 3D on
the Web, between applications and across distributed networks and web
services. Through well-coordinated efforts with the ISO and W3C, and
now the OGC, the Web3D Consortium is maintaining and extending its
standardization activities.
See also: Geography Markup Language (GML)
XML 2006: Return to Where It All Began
Elliotte Rusty Harold, IBM developerWorks
XML 2006 was one of the most exciting and active conferences I've been
to in several years. In addition to the final emergence from the post
dot-bomb malaise and the possible expansion of Bubble 2.0, several
factors converged to make this one of the most interesting XML
conferences since the late 90s: (1) XQuery: XQuery stood out as the
star of the show, beginning at the start with Roger Bamford's opening
keynote, in which he announced the FLWOR Foundation and its upcoming
efforts to develop an open source XQuery engine written in C++. The
engine will sit on top of various storage engines, including Oracle's
Berkeley DB. At least a dozen presentations addressed XQuery, compared
to only three last year. (2) Atom: Atom might be old hat for the markup
geeks at this show, but the newer Atom Publishing Protocol (APP) is
bleeding-edge enough to attract a lot of interest. APP may be a sleeper
technology like XML was 10 years ago. Like XML before it, APP is proving
capable of a lot more than its creators aimed for. It could well do
for application layer protocols what XML did for data formats: APP might
finally let everyone use a few standard, interoperable, reliable
libraries to transfer content between systems instead of rolling their
own brittle unique code. (3) Web 2.0: Beyond XQuery, technologies to
watch include GRDDL, APP, and XProc. Also pay attention to anything
called Web 2.0. Yes, it's hype; and yes, if you asked four speakers at
this conference how they defined Web 2.0, you got six different answers;
but there's a lot of reality behind the hype. Finally, if you previously
looked at technologies like XSL-FO or XForms and rejected them because
the implementations weren't robust or ready for prime time, take another
look. A lot of bugs have been shaken out, and people have started to
build impressive systems on top of some formerly shaky foundations.
The first 10 years of XML were only the beginning. The future is
looking very bright indeed.
See also: the conference web site
Survey: Typical SOA Development Takes 3-6 Months
Darryl K. Taft
According to a recent survey by Evans Data, more than 40 percent of
developers polled who said they were working on service-oriented
architectures also said they can finish a typical SOA development in
three months. The Evans Data poll shows that this 40 percent figure
represents more than twice as many developers as last year. Indeed,
the Santa Cruz, Calif., company's latest survey also showed that more
than 60 percent of all SOA projects now take only six months or less
to complete. The results are part of Evans Data's new 2006 Web Services
Development Survey, which the company will release on Dec. 22. Evans
Data officials said the results indicate a growth in maturity of Web
services and SOA technologies. Meanwhile, other findings from the
survey of 400 developers are that half of the developers working on
Web services are also currently using AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript
and XML) or plan to do so over the next 12 months. This figure is up
slightly from 45 percent six months ago. Moreover, developers said
the primary challenge to SOA development and deployment is determining
return on investment for SOA followed by getting organizational buy-in.
The survey also showed that in three years, two out of three SOA
developers will be running the majority of their applications in
managed code.
See also: InfoWorld
W3C Celebrates Ten Years with Style
Staff, W3C Announcement
The World Wide Web Consortium is celebrating ten years of Cascading
Style Sheets (CSS) with the release of a new online CSS validator and
a "CSS10 Gallery" illustrating some of the consortium's favorite CSS
design patterns. CSS is a technology that designers use to create
attractive, economical, and flexible Web sites. CSS success derives
from its numerous benefits to designers. The first benefit is the rich
feature set. Using a simple declarative style, designers can set
positioning, margins and alignment, layering, colors, text styling,
list numbering, and much more. Furthermore, writing direction, font
styles, and other conventions differ from one written language to
another. CSS supports an increasing number of different typographic
traditions and has made significant progress toward being able to
display multilingual documents. Style sheets can be shared by multiple
pages, making it easy to update an entire site by changing a single
line of CSS. Because style sheets can be cached, this can mean
improved performance as well. CSS promotes accessibility in a number
of ways, without compromising design. Separating markup from style
enables accessibility agents to convey information according to the
needs of users with disabilities. A related CSS benefit is easier
cross-media publishing; the same document may be viewed with different
devices (from large color monitors to mobile phones to printers)
simply by applying the appropriate style sheet. Software can choose
the most appropriate style sheet automatically (as suggested by the
style sheet author), and allow the user to choose from among available
style sheets to meet that individual's needs.
See also: the validator
Google Data Joins PHP Zend Framework
Sean Michael Kerner, InternetNews.com
With more than 200,000 downloads in just over a year, the Zend Framework
for writing Web applications in PHP has emerged as an enterprise
challenger to Java and .NET. The PHP community hopes that trend continues
this week with Zend Framework 0.6, a new version of the platform that
features a number of improvements over its predecessors. Upgrades
includes bug fixes and a new authentication module, but Google's donation
of its GData API for the framework may be the crown jewel. GData combines
both Atom 1.0 and RSS 2.0 XML syndication formats to read and write data
to the Web for mashups and other data manipulations. Google currently
uses GData in its Google Calendar API, Blogger Data API, Google Base API,
Spreadsheets API and Google Code Search API, among others. With the
GData module in place, the PHP Framework can more easily create mashups
and better utilize Google components that use GData. The GData module
is not the first Web services (define) component added to the Zend
Framework; the Framework has featured support for Amazon, Flickr and
Yahoo! APIs under the Zend_Service module since version 0.1.1 . The Zend
Framework 0.6 implements GData in the top level Zend_GData component and
not under Zend_Service. Another reason cited by Gutmans for making GData
top level is that Zend also distributes Zend_GData on a stand-alone basis
and is the official PHP Google Data API.
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