Will Your SOA Systems Work in the Real World?

The fundamental promise of Service Oriented Architectures (SOA) and Web services demands consistent and reliable interoperability. Despite this promise, existing Web services standards and emerging specifications present an array of challenges for developers and testers alike. Because these standards and specifications often permit multiple acceptable implementation alternatives or usage options, interoperability issues often result. The Web Services Interoperability Organization (WS-I) has focused on providing guidance, tools, and other resources to developers and testers to help ensure consistent and reliable Web services. Jacques Durand focuses on the WS-I testing tools that are used to determine whether the messages exchanged with a Web service conform to WS-I guidelines. These tools monitor the messages and analyze the resulting log to identify any known issues, thus improving interoperability between applications and across platforms.

• WS-I interoperability conformance guidelines and policies
• How to use each of the WS-I testing tools
• Ways to use the results of the conformance tool tests