The OASIS international standards consortium today announced that its members have approved the Universal Description, Discovery and Integration (UDDI) version 3.0.2 as an OASIS Standard, a status that signifies the highest level of ratification. Advanced through an open process, UDDI is commonly regarded as a cornerstone of Web services, defining a standard method for publishing and discovering network-based software components in a service-oriented architecture (SOA).

"The UDDI registry model is one of the central elements of an interoperable framework that ensures the effective interaction of services in a service oriented architecture." said Frank Kenney, analyst at Gartner. "By enabling policy-based distribution and management of enterprise Web services, a UDDI registry can deliver significant business value. It can help ensure that the convenience of developers, the requirements of enterprise architects, and the underlying business policies are not in opposition; in fact, it brings all of these needs into closer alignment by increasing software flexibility, reuse, centralization and control; allowing enforcement and ultimately governance."

The UDDI OASIS Standard specifies protocols for creating a registry for Web services, methods for controlling access to the registry, and a mechanism for distributing or delegating records to other registries. Version 3.0.2 adds the ability to affiliate registries in keeping with SOA's emphasis on supporting a variety of infrastructural variations and providing a means to define relationships among a variety of UDDI registries. Although from its inception, the specification included concepts such as delegation and distribution among server peers, earlier UDDI definitions relied upon proprietary means of interaction. By contrast, UDDI v3.0.2 provides an open, standardized approach to ensure widely interoperable communication.

"The v3.0.2 OASIS Standard represents another significant milestone in UDDI's evolution," noted Luc Clement of Systinet, co-chair of the OASIS UDDI Specification Technical Committee. "It delivers key capabilities for enterprise-level deployment, providing different responses depending upon the security, transport, or quality of service as defined by business rules or taxonomies."

"One of the most significant enhancements of UDDI v3.0.2 is that it allows well-known identifiers for service descriptions to be created, facilitating reuse of service descriptions among registries," added Tony Rogers of Computer Associates, co-chair of the OASIS UDDI Specification Technical Committee. "This makes it much easier for developers and architects to communicate."

Other v3.0.2 features include support for digital signatures, allowing UDDI to deliver a higher degree of data integrity and authenticity. Extended discovery features can combine previous, multi-step queries into a single-step, complex query. UDDI now also provides the ability to nest sub-queries within a single query, letting clients narrow their searches much more efficiently.

Patrick Gannon, president and CEO of OASIS, applauded the thorough approach taken by the UDDI developers, pointing to the large body of use cases and technical notes that supplement the specification. "The technical committee has taken the time to precisely articulate the business case for UDDI. They've also actively consulted and collaborated with related standards efforts, such as the OASIS Web Services for Remote Portlets (WSRP) Technical Committee, UN/CEFACT's ebXML Core Components Working Group, and the OASIS Web Services for Business Process Execution Language (WSBPEL) Technical Committee."

Two new technical notes were released simultaneously with UDDI 3.0.2. The first provides advice on using UDDI and WSBPEL together. The second explains the process using JAX-RPC for a UDDI client. These technical notes are part of the on-going effort by the OASIS UDDI Technical Committee to facilitate and promote the use of UDDI in a wide variety of contexts.

Participation in the OASIS UDDI Specification Technical Committee remains open to all organizations and individuals. Suppliers, end-users and system integrators are invited to join OASIS to participate in the continued development and the adoption of UDDI. OASIS hosts an open mail list for public comment and the uddi-dev mailing list for exchanging information on implementing the standard.

"As the adoption of Web services by businesses worldwide continues to grow, it's becoming more important to effectively provide reliable and standards-based discovery of these services. Along with advances in the standards for management and security of Web services, these latest enhancements to UDDI will help enterprises address these challenges and will, therefore, promote broader adoption of Web services and drive development of business solutions that take advantage of interoperability between multiple Web services," said Toby J Weiss of Computer Associates.

"UDDI is doing for server-to-server communication what DNS did for the Internet, by making it much easier and cheaper to connect and stay connected to services," said Eugene Kuznetsov, chairman and chief technical officer of DataPower, "DataPower customers see the combination of application-aware networking and UDDI as the cornerstone of SOA."

"Digital Evolution became one of the first companies to offer a commercially available UDDI v3 registry when we released version 2.0 of our Service Manager product in 2003," said Roberto Medrano of Digital Evolution. "We are excited OASIS is backing the latest iteration of UDDI as the right choice for enterprise-class registry deployments."

"UDDI continues to serve an important role in the deployment of Services Oriented Architectures", said Karla Norsworthy of IBM. "IBM will extend support for UDDI Version 3 in the WebSphere Application Server. The security enhancements in UDDI combined with the industry leading enterprise capabilities in WebSphere will be especially important for customers using UDDI to improve reuse and simplify discovery of Web services across their IT infrastructure."

"As one of the initial co-authors of UDDI V3, SAP supports its ratification as an OASIS Standard," said Michael Bechauf of SAP. "Building on the enterprise-readiness of UDDI V2, the enhancements that went into UDDI V3, such as the support of XML digital signatures for data integrity and authenticity and a pub/sub-mechanism for change notifications address commonly requested requirements and make UDDI the canonical candidate for enterprise services registries. The next version of SAP NetWeaver, the open integration and application platform for mySAP Business Suite and SAP xApp composite applications, will support UDDI V3. Its openness reflects SAP's commitment to industry standards and interoperability that enables users to implement, integrate and maintain their infrastructures through a Web services-oriented architecture."

"UDDI V3 is an important new specification for SOA," said David Butler of Systinet. "New features like registry affiliation, publisher assigned keys and the subscription API provide for enterprise class interoperability. These features are key to advancing UDDI's ability to deliver significant business value to the enterprise."

OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards) is a not-for-profit, international consortium that drives the development, convergence, and adoption of e-business standards.