The OASIS Web Services Reliable Exchange (WS-RX) TC has recently approved the following specification set as a Committee Draft and approved the package for public review:
- Web Services Reliable Messaging v1.1
- Web Services Reliable Messaging Policy Assertion v1.1
- Web Services Make Connection v1.0
For an excellent introduction to WS Reliable Messaging and WSRM Policy Assertion, see Paul Fremantle’s article here on InfoQ. Changes since then include the addition of definitions and policies for delivery assurances, and the new WS-MakeConnection specification, which was factored out of the previous WSRM specification.
Web Services Make Connection (or WS-MakeConnection for short) “describes a protocol that allows messages to be transferred between nodes implementing this protocol by using a transport-specific back-channel. The protocol is described in this specification in a transport-independent manner allowing it to be implemented using different network technologies.” An example use case for this specification would be a request/response interaction over HTTP: using WS-Addressing headers, a sender could indicate that responses are to be sent on the “back channel” (as an HTTP response). If the connection is no longer available once the receiver wants to return the response, the sender can retrieve the response later. WS-MakeConnection seems to be similar to WS-Polling, a specification that was submitted to the W3C in October 2005.
The public review started yesterday, 12 February 2007, and ends 27 February 2007; all interested parties, whether OASIS members or not, are encouraged to provide feedback.
The full list of links for the specs in various formats can be found in the announcement message.