Has WS-I's Work Resulted in Ws-* Interoperability?

Abstract

Recently, the Web Services Interoperability Organization(WS-I) has announced to have completed its interoperability standards work. The latest deliverables include the so-called "Basic Security Profile" and the "Reliable SecureProfile". This gives rise to the question whether or not Web Services adopters can rely on interoperability of Web Services stacks, in particular in terms of security and reliability features. To answer this question, we thoroughly analyze two important Web Services stacks for interoperability of WS-Security and WS-Reliable Messaging features. Our analysis shows that security and reliability features are far from being implemented in an interoperable manner. Additionally, we reveal that some of those interoperability problems are not even covered by WS-I profiles and therefore conclude that WS-I's work has not yet resulted in Web Services interoperability.