OASIS Members Form Committee to Advance Web Services Transaction (WS-TX) Standards.

BOSTON -- OASIS:

--Actional, Adobe, BEA Systems, Cast Iron Systems, DataPower, Fujitsu, Hitachi, IBM, IONA, Microsoft, Oracle, Reactivity, Ricoh, SAP, SOA Software, Sonic Software, Systinet, TIBCO, webMethods, and Others Collaborate on Extensible Framework for Developing Coordination Protocols

Members of the OASIS international standards consortium announced plans to define a set of protocols for coordinating the outcome of distributed application actions. The new OASIS Web Services Transaction (WS-TX) Technical Committee brings together users and vendors in an open process to refine and finalize a set of specifications based on three initial contributions, Web Services Coordination (WS-Coordination), Atomic Transaction (WS-AtomicTransaction), and Business Activity Framework (WS-BusinessActivity). Other contributions and changes to these input documents will be accepted for consideration without prejudice or restriction and evaluated based on technical merit.

"The ability to conduct secure, reliable transactions using protocols rather than a dependence on shared technology is a powerful concept, " said Lawrence Wilkes, Principal Analyst, CBDi. "WS-TX is the final piece of that jigsaw and with broad industry backing, it sets the direction that users are looking for."

"The interoperability of the contributed specifications has already been demonstrated by several vendors," noted Eric Newcomer of IONA, proposed co-chair of the OASIS WS-TX Technical Committee. "Our objective at OASIS will be to receive the broadest possible industry feedback and use that input to refine and build on what exists today."

The Committee plans to begin its work by focusing on the underlying specification, WS-Coordination. It will then proceed to advance WS-AtomicTransaction and WS-BusinessActivity.

"When you look at the industry today, a requirement to satisfy two common transaction patterns--atomic and compensating business activities--emerges," said Ian Robinson of IBM, proposed co-chair of the OASIS WS-TX Technical Committee. "By concentrating our initial efforts on WS-Coordination, we intend to distill the common features and provide a basis for extensibility, so that future transaction models can be supported as well."

"Our community's understanding of the nature of transactional functions in a service-oriented system has improved considerably over the past few years," observed James Bryce Clark, director of standards development at OASIS. "This new committee provides a very clear set of components for those functions. We are delighted to see the work brought into open standardization, which will help make its usefulness and connections to other methods obvious. "

The OASIS WS-TX Technical Committee will operate under Royalty Free on RAND Terms, as defined by the OASIS Intellectual Property Rights Policy. The Committee's first meeting will be held on 16-17 November, and participation remains open to all companies, non-profit groups, and individuals. As with all OASIS projects, archives of the Committee's work will be accessible to both members and non-members, and OASIS will host an open mail list for public comment.

Support for WS-TX

Actional

"The long term success of Web services and SOA is directly affected by their ability to be used for mission critical solutions in the enterprise, " said Dan Foody, CTO of Actional. "Because many mission critical applications require transactional integrity, Actional is pleased to support WS-TX. WS-TX will enable these applications to be successfully built and deployed using web services without sacrificing multi-vendor interoperability."

Hitachi

"From its earliest days as a supplier of information technology, Hitachi has deployed demanding transactional systems to both private and public sectors. Since these early days, both Hitachi and technology have evolved together. The WS-TX specifications move that evolution one step further and prepare the industry for the next generation of transactional systems. We are grateful to be part of the team," said Takao Nakamura, Executive General Manager, Software Division, Hitachi.

Microsoft

"Microsoft is committed to working with the industry on developing Web services specifications that meet the needs of our customers and partners," said Ari Bixhorn, Director of Web Services Strategy for Microsoft. "The transaction specifications submitted to OASIS will enable customers to more effectively manage complex business tasks across disparate applications and incorporate transactional Web services into enterprise-critical systems."

Oracle

"Oracle is excited to be a key participant in the OASIS WS-TX Technical Committee," said Vice President, Standards Strategy and Architecture at Oracle, Donald Deutsch. "As a long-time advocate of open standards, Oracle is committed to working within standards setting organizations to ensure that customers can leverage the large-scale benefits that Web services can provide."

SAP

"As a charter member of the OASIS WS-TX Technical Committee, we look forward to collaborating with other industry leaders to create a specification that will lead towards standardization of Web services consensus protocols," said Michael Bechauf, Vice President of Industry Standards, SAP. "This specification is critical to the Enterprise Services Architecture (ESA) because it makes it easier for our customers to use services to compose innovative B2B solutions that run on SAP NetWeaver. In our capacity as a leading provider of integration solutions, we are well positioned to provide use cases that can be leveraged to help establish the applicability and the optimization potential of the WS-TX protocols."

SOA Software

"WS-TX represents the next major step for Web services and SOA," said Alistair Farquharson, CTO at SOA Software. "Adding the ability to support distributed transactions allows Web services and SOA to become a core part of the high-value value business transaction processing that makes up the bulk of most large enterprise systems. Essentially, WS-TX promotes SOA and Web services to the major leagues."

TIBCO

"As a leading Service-Oriented Architecture and Web services provider, our vision is to help customers implement SOA across heterogeneous IT resources, " said Matt Quinn, vice president, product strategy, TIBCO Software. "Standards-based Web services transactions will provide enterprises with the transactional integrity and interoperability across diverse assets to help develop and manage mission critical applications. TIBCO currently provides transaction support with its TIBCO BusinessWorks technology, and as a member of the OASIS WS-TX Technical Committee, we will help drive the standardization of transaction technologies."

webMethods

"We are pleased to co-propose the OASIS WS-TX Technical Committee and bring this important set of specifications to an open consortium," said Kristin Weller Muhlner, executive vice president, Product Development, webMethods. "The WS-Coordination, WS-AtomicTransaction, and WS-BusinessActivity specifications work is an important step forward in adding standards-based coordination and transaction management capabilities to Web services. This will enable the creation of next generation transactional Application Integration and Business Process Automation solutions in a services-oriented architecture."

About OASIS:

OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards) is a not-for-profit, international consortium that drives the development, convergence, and adoption of e-business standards. Members themselves set the OASIS technical agenda, using a lightweight, open process expressly designed to promote industry consensus and unite disparate efforts. The consortium produces open standards for Web services, security, e-business, and standardization efforts in the public sector and for application-specific markets. Founded in 1993, OASIS has more than 5,000 participants representing over 600 organizations and individual members in 100 countries. Approved OASIS Standards include AVDL, CAP, DITA, DocBook, DSML, ebXML CPPA, ebXML Messaging, ebXML Registry, OpenDocument, SAML, SPML, UBL, UDDI, WSDM, WS-Reliability, WSRP, WS-Security, XACML, and XCBF. http://www.oasis-open.org

Additional information:

OASIS WS-TX Technical Committee: http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/ws-tx

Cover Pages Technology Report on Messaging and Transaction Coordination: http://xml.coverpages.org/coordination.html