The New Nation - Internet Edition

Azizur Rahman

WS-Security provides the standards on how to apply security to messages, but it does not specify what security measures should be applied. WS-SecurityPolicy, which uses the WS-Policy language, allows for allows for the owner of a service to describe their security policy. Service owners can specify acceptable algorithms for encryption, formats for security tokens, and other information on how and when to apply security.

WS-Security can protect single SOAP messages, but it does not address how to protect a series of related SOAP messages. In a typical web service, it is common to exchange a series of messages with a consumer during the course of an interaction. WS-SecureConversation builds upon WS-Trust, WS-SecurityPolicy and WS-Security to provide a way of protecting a series of messages that fall under the same security context.

WS-Federation provides a language and set of procedures to broker trust relationships between disparate security domains. Businesses can use it to interact with external partners without the need to maintain authentication and authorization information for each employee of an external organization. In oversimplified terms, WS-Federation is like a single sign-on solution for Web Services. Using WS-Federation, a consumer of a new Web Service could automatically pass the relevant authentication information without the need to set up an account with that service provider.

Messaging

Getting a Web Service message from point A to point B is not always a simple task. A Web Service needs to assure receipt of the correct number of messages at the correct endpoint. SOAP does not contain inherent support for advanced messaging features needed by enterprise services.

WS-Addressing addresses the limitations of how to delivery and address SOAP. There is no addressing information given in the SOAP header and therefore addressing information is normally the URL of the Web Service. This places restrictions on advanced types of routing and configuration of Web Services. For example, it does not allow a Web Service to reply-to an address different from the one that invoked it. WS-Addressing specifies a means to identify the intended recipient, a reply-to address and a message ID. It also provides a mechanism to specify addressing errors. Many of the other WS-* standards use WS-Addressing.

WS-ReliableMessaging assures the reliable delivery of a sequence of messages. It contains a great deal of flexible in defining delivery assurances. A service owner can require the consumer receives messages in order, at least once, only once or at least once. Additionally, it can tailor the sending of acknowledgements. A service can require acknowledgments for each message or a series of messages. It can also specify whether it wants acknowledgement of delivery or only notification of failure.

Additional standards define advanced messaging patterns, such as the publish/subscribe message pattern. A publish/subscribe message pattern is familiar to anyone who has ever subscribed to a newsletter, newspaper or magazine. A typical situation involves a producer of information publishing a new message. A subscriber chooses which messages to receive by having subscriptions to messages of interest. Often there is an intermediary, called a notification broker, who keeps track of subscriptions. This alleviates producers of information from needing to handle the complexities of managing subscriptions and delivering information to all subscribers.

WS-Notification and WS-Eventing are two competing standards that implement publish/subscribe messaging. There are some technical differences between these standards, but not enough to provide meaningful differences. In the end, a user will likely choose which standard to use based upon which standard gains more implementation.

Policy

The WSDL describes Web Service operations and bindings, but it is insufficient to describe non-functional constraints such as security and quality of service. WS-Policy provides a general framework for describing Web Service policies. Other WS-* standards such as WS-Security and WS-ReliableMessaging define policy documents relating to their requirements. Likewise, organizations can define their own, non-standard policy documents using the WS-Policy framework. By using the WS-Policy, Web Services can advertise mandatory and discretionary requirements of binding to their service.

Orchestration

A Web Service is not usually a complete application, but is a part of a larger application. In many respects, it is useful to think of a Web Service as a single subroutine in a larger program. In order to provide a useful function, something needs to compose multiple Web Services to perform complex tasks. A developer can use typical programming languages to compose Web Services or use a Web Services orchestration language.

The Web Services Business Process Execution Language (WS-BPEL) is a XML-based language that composes Web Services into complex tasks. Think of a BPEL as a scripting language, but designed with Web Services in mind. A developer creates a BPEL script and executes that script in an orchestration engine. The BPEL script should be independent of vendor implementation and therefore portable across orchestration engines.

Another advantage of WS-BPEL is that there exist multiple graphical modeling tools to facilitate the creation of BPEL scripts. Business analysts with minimal technical knowledge can use these tools to model business processes and actually create executable code from these models. In the future, these tools may be sophisticated enough to allow business analysts to create new applications without the technical knowledge.

The Enterprise Service Bus

The Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) is a concept that goes beyond the realm of Web Services. It is not a set of standards, but rather a term that covers a wide-range of technological implementations. The fundamental concept behind the ESB involves integrating disparate distributed applications using mediation and routing. ESBs often add commonly needed functions. Common services include support for WS-* standards, load balancing, advanced message routing, transformation between transport layer protocols, message filtering, business process management, logging, auditing and advanced error handling.

Next Steps

A quick and simple way to get started with Web Services is to start experimenting. The open source software described above provides a great opportunity to pilot Web Service technology without a large upfront investment. Developers can create example Web Services from scratch or remote-enable existing software by wrapping them with Web Services. This approach quickly demonstrates the value of Web Services without introducing a great deal of risk.

Ultimately, Web Services can provide organizations with many benefits. Web Services can expose legacy application logic across networks enabling otherwise isolated applications to share their data. Web Services enable reuse of resource by sharing commonly needed functions and data across an organization. Each organization will need to determine how best to use Web Services within their infrastructure in order to realize these benefits.

Reuters, Shanghai/Seattle

In his first official visit to the United States in 2006, China President Hu Jintao arrived for dinner at Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates' house with a gift for the host.

Shortly before Hu's Seattle visit, the Chinese government had issued a decree requiring all personal computers manufactured in China to come with a licensed operating system before leaving the factory gates.

Now, nearly two years later, that gift keeps giving. The software company co-founded by Gates is seeing the benefits of more stringent intellectual property policies in China, with a decline in piracy rates and improved results at its mainstay Windows division.

China is by no means the worst offender.

More than a dozen other countries -- including Indonesia and Ukraine -- have higher software piracy rates, according to a study from the Business Software Alliance and IDC. None of those countries, however, offers the promise of China, the world's second-largest PC market, growing at more than 10 percent a year.

China's piracy rates, the level of pirated software in a particular country, dropped to 82 percent in 2006 from 90 percent in 2004, the study said.

"In China, where piracy is the way things are done with respect to software, any marginal money Microsoft gets back is super important," said Kim Caughey, portfolio manager and senior analyst at Fort Pitt Capital Group.

Reducing software piracy and selling more expensive versions of Windows are ways for Microsoft to generate sales growth that exceeds the overall PC market, a task made difficult since its global market share already tops 90 percent.

Microsoft said improvements in fighting piracy accounted for about $164 million of the $822 million revenue gain at the Windows client unit in the quarter ended September.

Windows is Microsoft's most lucrative product with an operating margin exceeding 80 percent.

"Every pirated copy that Microsoft converts into a paying customer all flows to the bottom line," said Morningstar analyst Toan Tran. "It could have a dramatic effect on its profit margin."

Despite the progress being made, pirated software is still readily available on the streets of Shanghai.

Fuzhou Road in the former British concession near the Bund, an area famous for bookstores and art boutiques, is also locally renowned as a place to buy pirate PCs and software.

The small alleyways running off Fuzhou Road host dozens of pirate PC shops, which usually have no signs. Locals ask passersby if they want to buy "cheap" PCs or software before leading potential customers to the store.

Once a computer is assembled, the customer is given a list of pirated software options, ranging from Microsoft Office to Adobe Systems' Photoshop. If a software program is not there, it can be ordered.

The government decree requiring PC makers to pre-install an operating system sought to address the problem of Chinese consumers buying computers without software and then opting to buy less expensive counterfeit software.

Beijing went one step further, calling on any Chinese companies wanting to do business with the government to run properly licensed software.

"The whole situation is heading in the right direction," said Hao Jing, spokeswoman at Founder Technology Group, China's second-largest PC maker. "Pre-installing genuine copyrighted operating systems has become an industry standard."

Earlier this year, the Chinese police and the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation seized $500 million worth of pirated software, including counterfeit Microsoft and Symantec products, from a Chinese piracy syndicate.

"We've seen in the last two years significant emphasis on legitimate intellectual property use in China," said Cori Hartje, director of Microsoft's genuine software initiative.

Microsoft said it needs to do more in educating consumers to the benefits of getting genuine software like access to software updates and better security. Improved technology also serves to deter piracy.

Windows Vista, the latest version of its operating system, has been more effective in preventing piracy. Microsoft has said piracy rates for Vista are half the level of its predecessor Windows XP.

In Vista's first major update due out next year, Microsoft said it plans to close two primary methods used by software pirates to illegally copy Windows Vista.

Internet

Nokia is recording a surge of new customers for its Nokia Intellisync Mobile Suite in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, putting the company at the forefront of accelerated mobile email adoption in the region. Many companies such as Bayerischer Rundfunk, Austrian Federal Football League, Computerlinks and Sparkassen Informatik offer their employees mobile access to email via the Nokia Intellisync Wireless Email solution.

Security, scalability and a broad compatibility with a large number of mobile devices and groupware solutions are among the top criteria for the companies to choose Nokia Intellisync Wireless Email.

At the same time the modular structure of Nokia Intellisync Mobile Suite allows highest flexibility; a range of applications such as device management or file synchronization can be easily and flexibly added as and when mobility needs grow going forward. Secure mobile email access was only one aspect for Sparkassen Informatik to implement Nokia Intellisync Mobile Suite. Another important factor was remote access to sensitive information in their corporate data base.

The solution offers the possibility to share documents and Intranet based content with mobile workers and update the content automatically on the mobile devices. "Given our structure where each branch manages employees independently, multitenancy was a paramount requirement for our wireless email solution, in addition to a secure offering," says Norbert Schmautz, System administrator for Sparkassen Informatik.

Mobile email is also very important for Computerlinks Switzerland: "Especially in our fast moving business, it is our competitive advantage to be agile - to be able to react quickly to any market condition or customer request in a secure way," says Derk Steffens, managing director at Computerlinks AG Switzerland. "We have chosen Nokia Intellisync Mobile Suite as we wanted to implement the solution behind the firewall - we did not want to make any compromise in security matters." The employees of the Austrian Federal Football league work remotely on their emails using Nokia E50 and E61 devices.

"We especially value the flexibility and the ease of use of the Nokia wireless email solution. As the email sycnronization can be activated or switched off at the push of a button, the user himself can decide whether he wants to be available or not," says Georg Pangl, Managing Director, Austrian Federal Football League. "Thus, private and business life play well together, given the many games we have during the weekends".

At Bayerischer Rundfunk about 200 reporters use mobile email. Device management helps the company to control the device fleet. "We selected Nokia Intellisync Wireless Email as it fulfilled all our criteria such as fast and secure access to mobile email as well as mobile synchronization of contact and calendar details," says Josef Spitzlberger IT manager, Bayerischer Rundfunk. "From an IT perspective an easy integration into our existing IT infrastructure was key as well as the central management of all devices via the device management module of Nokia Intellisync Mobile Suite." It is also very important for staff at the technical directorate to be highly accessible since the IT systems cannot be "down" in a media environment. The alert function running via the Nokia solution enables the technical directorate staff at Bayerischer Rundfunk to be advised quickly if problems arise.

"The examples of Sparkassen Informatik or Bayerischer Rundfunk clearly show how important it is to consider mobility as part of the company's overall IT strategy. We recommend companies to take a holistic view on mobility solutions rather than focus on single mobility deployments," says Mikko Stout, sales head for Austria, Germany, and Switzerland, Enterprise Solutions, Nokia. "In this respect, it is paramount that the chosen mobility solution does not only support mobile email, but can scale and grow together with a company's mobility.