The New Nation - Internet Edition

Azizur Rahman

The ability for SOAP to use standard ports and protocols, such as SMTP, HTTPS, and HTTP, offsets its performance and bandwidth issues. The use of common Internet technologies allows SOAP to transverse firewalls easier than other remote procedure call protocols. The ability of SOAP to interoperate with existing network topologies without requiring network reconfigurations is one of the driving factors for its popularity.

WSDL

Web Services Description Language (WSDL) is an XML-based language that describes how external programs interface with a Web Service. WSDL is similar to header files in C/C++ or IDL in CORBA in that it defines a standardized interface into a software function. WSDL is independent of any programming language and can define interfaces to Web Services regardless of the programming language.

Typically, a developer uses development tools to generate Web Service implementation skeleton code from a WSDL. Conversely, developers can use tools to generate WSDL from existing code. While the later approach is easier for existing code, it is more prone to issues as it strongly couples the WSDL to the development environment.

The WSDL has two parts. The first part is an abstract part that describes the operations and associated parameters supported by a Web Service. The abstract WSDL is independent of technological implementation of those services. Many of the WS-* standards use abstract WSDLs to define their interfaces. The second part is a concrete binding that describes implementation details of operations and service hosting information. In a typical WSDL, a concrete binding describes how the abstract operations are bound to SOAP messages, but these bindings can also describe Representational State Transfer (REST) bindings or even bindings to CORBA. A service can implement multiple bindings in a single WSDL.

UDDI

Universal Description Discovery and Integration (UDDI) is a XML-based registry to store information regarding services. UDDI contains three types of information, White Pages, Yellow Pages and Green Pages. White Pages contain basic contact information, such as address and phone numbers, regarding business proving a service. Yellow Pages describe services by categorizing them according using a taxonomy. Green Pages provide technical information necessary to bind to a Web Service. Green Pages can include WSDL definitions, but are not limited to using WSDL to describe Web Service interfaces and bindings. Developers and services can access UDDI through standardized Web Interfaces.

While it is possible to invoke UDDI, developers normally access it to discover new Web Services and to develop code to invoke those services. For organizations with a limited number of Web Services, a UDDI registry is not necessarily essential. As numbers of Web Services in an organization grow, UDDI is a recommended building block to register and discover new Web Services.

WS-*

Developers can create basic and functional Web Services using only SOAP and WSDL, but will need to implement a great deal of software to handle complex interactions. Most Web Services need advanced capabilities such as quality of service assurances and security.

Fortunately, many of the commonly needed features are standardized and implemented in a wide range of open source and proprietary products.

The extensions to basic Web Services are known as the WS-* family of specifications as most of these specifications begin with WS prefix. These specifications are vendor independent standards approved by organizations such as the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS). Common WS-* specifications include WS-Security, WS-ReliableMessaging, WS-BPEL and WS-Addressing.

Security

In many uses of Web Services, services send messages outside of the network boundaries of an organization and onto open networks. Often times, external organizations are the consumers of Web Services.

Service owners need to assure only properly authenticated and authorized end users can access their Web Services. There are a variety WS-* security standards that address protecting Web Service messages, passing authentication information, describing security policy and other security related issues.

WS-Security defines the basic elements necessary to apply security to SOAP messages. In lay terms, WS-Security provides the means to prove that messages sent are from the intended receiver, assures an unauthorized entity does not change messages in transit, prevent an unintended recipient from reading messages and pass information necessary to prove one's identity. In technical terms, WS-Security specifies how to apply encryption and digital signatures to SOAP messages in a standardized way as well as how to pass security tokens.

WS-Security builds upon previous standards such as XML Encryption, XML Digital Signature and Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML). It also incorporates non-XML security models such as Kerberos, Public-Key Infrastructure (PKI), and Security Socket Layer (SSL).

The Local Language Programme (LLP) is a worldwide initiative of Microsoft dedicated to providing individuals access to computer software in their native language (Bengali, in our case). The initiative was designed to provide people an entry to technology in a language that is familiar and that honours their linguistic and cultural distinctions. There are three pillars to the Local Language Programme:

Language/Culture Pillar: This is represented by the creation of a Glossary-

A standard IT glossary is translated into the local language through collaboration from local governments, universities, and language experts. The glossaries are freely downloadable from the community glossary Website and will be made available once the LIP (see below) is released.

Technology Pillar: This is represented by the Language Interface Pack (LIP)-Developed from the glossary, this application provides a native language desktop user interface. Once the LIP is installed, the user interface for Microsoft Office Standard Edition 2007 and Windows Vista is translated to the desired language.

Community Pillar: This is represented by the development of local solutions on top of the LIPs-Solutions such as spelling checkers, translation dictionaries, screen savers, and others may be among these developments.

Overview:Governments around the world are facing a great challenge in today's global economy-the need to quickly build a strong information technology (IT) industry. Microsoft is committed to providing the tools and technologies required to develop, enhance, and expand local IT economies and to enable language groups of all sizes to participate in this growth. The Local Language Programme is designed to provide these opportunities to people of all regions, cultures, and languages in close collaboration with regional and local governments and universities.

The Local Language Programme addresses several critical goals of national and regional governments worldwide:

Developing a robust local IT economy: Building universal IT solutions for multi-language cultures.

Enabling the use of regional languages in technology to facilitate the preservation of language and culture.

A Commitment to Global Communities: The Local Language Programme encourages growth of the local IT economy by offering the tools and knowledge needed by local users to create their own language solutions for desktop computer software.

The Bangladesh Perspective: Microsoft Bangladesh unleashed Local Language Programme (LLP) on November 8, 2006. to offer computing interface in Bengali language as a part of Microsoft's long-term commitment towards Bangladesh. LLP is designed specifically to collaborate with governments around the world and to provide them with the tools and technologies needed to realise the societal and economic benefits of the growing IT industry by enabling computer usage in the local language.

The Local Language Programme provides great opportunities to people of all cultures, regions, locales and languages by facilitating access and promoting communication and interaction.

Through this program, local and regional government participants can localise Windows® Vista and Office 2007 to one language interface through a Language Interface Pack (LIP). Hence, creating great opportunities to make computers more relevant to common people and creating opportunities for education, public and private services and addressing the digital divide. Microsoft Bangladesh has been partnering with Bangladesh Computer Council (BCC) and BRAC University (BU) to prepare the Bangla Language Interface Pack under the Local Language Programme. This highly challenging work is presently ongoing in the language centres of Bangladesh.

When completed, the Bengali LIP will be available as a free download. The Language Interface Pack may also be distributed on behalf of Microsoft by participating third parties such as governments and local language programme partners. The Language Interface Pack will provide the local government with an efficient and collaborative method of creating local language adaptations of software products for the benefit of the citizens.

Internet

Apple Inc. on Monday matched the patch count of last month's massive update, fixing 41 vulnerabilities in Mac OS X and updating the beta of its Windows browser to fix another.

Including Monday's fixes, Apple has patched approximately 200 bugs in the nine security updates it has issued so far during 2007. Four of the nine featured fixes for more than 40 different vulnerabilities. Security Update 2007-009 plugged holes in Apple's own code and that of some of the open-source components it integrates with the Tiger and Leopard operating systems. Nearly half of the 41 vulnerabilities -- at least 17 -- were marked by Apple as capable of "arbitrary code execution," which is the Cupertino, Calif. company's way of saying an exploit could conceivably result in malware infiltrating a Mac or enabling a hacker hijack of the machine. Apple does not rank its software mistakes, but other vendors, such as Microsoft Corp., usually label such vulnerabilities "critical."

Mac owners running Leopard, Mac OS X 10.5.1, received fixes for flaws in CFNetwork, CUPS, Flash Player Plug-in, Launch Services, Mail, perl, python, Quick Look, ruby, Safari, Samba, Shockwave Plug-in, Software Update and Spin Tracer. Tiger, or Mac OS X 10.4.11, was patched for all the above save the Quick Look patch, but was also received updates for Address Book, ColorSync, Core Foundation, Desktop Services, GNU Tar, iChat, IO Storage Family, Safari RSS, SMB, Spotlight, tcpdump, and XQuery.