New Web Services agreed for business security

By Alun Williams

Posted on 20 Dec 2002 at 13:16

Major players in the arena of Web services have come to an agreement over a new set of business Web services. The new specifications are aimed at sending sensitive business to business information securely.

The six new specifications are divided into two categories. The first is concerned with security: WS-Trust, WS-SecureConversation, WS-SecurityPolicy. The second group focuses on business policies: WS-Policy, WS-PolicyAttachment, WS-PolicyAssertions.

For example, WS-Trust describes a framework for assessing and managing trust relationships for subsequent Web services to securely work together.

The companies signed up to the agreement are BEA, IBM, Microsoft, RSA Security, SAP and VeriSign.

The new Web services have been delivered in accordance with a previously published road map - Security in a Web Services World: A Proposed Architecture and Roadmap.