Public discussion of domain-independent web services policy assertionlanguage

[Anne Anderson <Anne.Anderson@sun.com>]

Colleagues,

I am posting this to the XACML list because the proposed language uses 
XACML functions as a base and would allow certain XACML policies to be 
converted to web services policies easily.  Please take any further 
discussion to dipal-discuss@lists.oasis-open.org.

There is now a public e-mail discussion list at OASIS on possible
standardization of a domain-independent web services policy assertion
language.  Sun has offered to contribute the XACML-based Web
Services Policy Constraints Language (WS-PolicyConstraints) on
royalty-free terms as a possible starting point for such a language.
This language does not conflict with WS-Policy; it is designed to work
within a policy framework such as WS-Policy provides to deal with the
policy "Assertions" layer in a standard, interoperable way.

I encourage you to subscribe to this list at
dipal-discuss-subscribe@lists.oasis-open.org

We need comments - pro and con - on both the concept and on the specific
proposal.  It is my belief that a domain-independent language for
expressing policy assertions will significantly enhance the
interoperability and maintainability of web services policy processors.
It will also enable the next generation of dynamically linked web
services, where both consumer and producer services will have
requirements that need to be satisfied.  Such a language will also
greatly assist those of you who have applications or domains that will
require their own new policy Assertion types, as such a language will
greatly reduce the effort required to implement and deploy support for
new Assertions.  WS-PolicyConstraints allows easy use of SAML or XACML
Attributes in web services policies, so it supports better
interoperability in this way as well.

There are resources on this topic available at
http://research.sun.com/projects/xacml/, including an introductory white
paper and the WS-PolicyConstraints specification.  I am happy to try to
answer any questions.

Regards,
Anne Anderson
-- 
Anne H. Anderson               Anne.Anderson@sun.com
Sun Microsystems Labs          1-781-442-0928
Burlington, MA USA