OASIS Open

FAQ

1. What does the OASIS WS-DD TC do and why does it include three specifications?

   This technical committee aims to standardize the WS-Discovery, SOAP-over-UDP and Devices Profile for Web Services (DPWS) specifications. The charter provides information on more detailed goals. At a high level the purpose of the TC is to standardize an interoperable way to discover Web services, be they enterprise services or embedded in devices, in an ad-hoc network or a carefully managed and controlled network. The other major goal of the TC is to define a lightweight, interoperable profile of Web services standards for communicating with Web services embedded in devices such as printers, scanners, conference room projectors, and many others.

   WS-Discovery and SOAP-over-UDP both have applications in addition to devices, but currently the only specification that references WS-Discovery is DPWS, and the only specification that references SOAP-over-UDP is WS-Discovery – so they are closely related, and the same audience is interested in all of them. It makes sense for the three specifications to be standardized together.

2. What value do these specs give to customers?

   Enterprise applications today are more dynamic than ever; they achieve greater scale through loosely coupled architecture and dynamic runtime composition. A standard Web services discovery protocol provides an interoperable way to locate Web services components of these composite applications.

   DPWS provides a profile that narrows the referenced specifications, increasing the likelihood of common implementation choices and interoperability for devices. Applications can be programmed to use services embedded in devices using the same development tools that are used to access other web services on the network.

3. Are these specifications only related to devices?

   DPWS is indeed specific to devices. WS-Discovery, on the other hand, can be used to advertise and search for any “type” on the network; its primary use is for discovering web services exposed on the network, but it can be used to announce and discover other resources as well.