Pune, India, 13 – 15 December 2010

ITU-T Kaleidoscope 2010Beyond the Internet? - Innovations for

future networks and services

Dr. Jai GaneshInfosys Technologies Ltd.

Jai_ganesh01@infosys.com

Competition and Cooperation in the formation of Information Technology

Interoperability Standards: A Process Model of Web Services Core

Standards

Contents

IntroductionMotivation, Research Objective

Literature SurveyStandardisation, Open Standards, IT interoperability, Process Theory, Web services, Standard Bodies

Research MethodologyProcess ModelConclusion

Pune, India, 13 – 15 Dec 2010: ITU-T Kaleidoscope 2010 – Beyond the Internet? Innovations for future networks and services 2

Introduction

Standards formation is a key dimension in the competitive strategy of ICT firms

modularization and network externalitiesfavorable IT interoperability standards

We examine the standardization efforts of core Web services standards

develop an empirically grounded process model of standardization processes of three inter-related core Web services standards

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Motivation

Web services standards involvecompetitive and cooperative standards formation strategies exhibited by dominant firms in the ICT industry, the standards are inter-related and were formed almost in parallel, private and public participation, including informal groups such as COP, involvement of multiple standard setting bodies reflecting the dynamics of institutionalization

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Research Objective

Understand the competitive as well as cooperative behavior of dominant firms in the process of standards settingLarge scale adoption of three core interoperability standards

UDDI, SOAP, WSDLICT interoperability fosters innovation by reducing lock-in effects, lowers entry barriers, enhances user choice, and growth of diverse applications

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Open Standards

Open Standards are standards made available to the general public and are developed (or approved) and maintained via a collaborative and consensus driven process

ITU-T

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Standard Bodies: W3C and OASIS

World Wide Web Consortium (W3C): SOAP, XML, WSDL

W3C focuses on basic specifications right from HTML and HTTP

W3C’s standards are applauded for their robustness

Standards setting process may run to two to three years. The slow pace may not find takers in fast moving technology businesses.

The Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS), UDDI

OASIS focuses on developing higher level standards

Standards formation timelines for OASIS are much shorter

OASIS has been criticized for the lower degree of usefulness and quality of its standards

Research Methodology: Data Sources

Data sources for our methodology were technical notes of standard bodies (OASIS, W3C, IETF etc.), research forums (IBMDeveloperworks etc.) analyst reports (Zapthink, Forrester and Gartner),books (Professional XML Web services) and practitioner journals (Dr. Dobb’s Journal)archives of developer discussions

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Research Methodology: Unit of Analysis

The unit of analysis was a particular standard i.e. SOAP, UDDI and WSDL

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ServiceBrokerServiceBroker

ServiceProviderServiceProvider

ServiceRequesto

r

ServiceRequesto

r

Invocation(SOAP)

Discover(UDDI)

Publish (WSDL)

Registry

WSDL

Web Services Description language (WSDL) defines a standard description mechanism for Web services

A WSDL document describes what functionality a Web service offers, how it communicates and where it is accessible. WSDL 1.0 was developed by IBM, Microsoft and Ariba WSDL 1.1 was published in March 2001 WSDL 2.0 became a W3C recommendation on June 2007

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SOAP

Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) is a XML based lightweight protocol for exchange of information in a decentralized, distributed environment

SOAP defines a mechanism for expressing application semantics by providing a modular packaging model SOAP was developed by Microsoft SOAP Version 1.2 became a W3C recommendation on June 24, 2003

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UDDI

Universal Description, Discovery and Integration (UDDI) is a platform-independent registry for businesses to list their web services on the Internet

Discovery mechanism for Web services. UDDI uses WSDL to describe the interfaces

IBM, Microsoft, Ariba and 33 other companies team up to develop UDDI specs in 2000

Public UDDIs did not find industry support and in 2006, IBM, Microsoft, and SAP closed their public UDDI nodes

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Process Theory

Process theories focus on sequences of activities to explain how and why particular outcomes evolve over time

Mohr, L. B. [1982]; Shaw, et al. [1997]

Process theories are easier to understand and are high in relevance

Shaw, and Jarvenpaa, [1997]

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Research Methodology: Analysis

We explored antecedent conditions, encounters, episodes, and outcomes during standards formationNewman, M. & Robey, D. [1992]

Each standard was analyzed by first preparing a visual process map of sequence of eventsEvents, activities and decisions were categorized and the time dimension of progression was also captured minutely

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Timeline of the 3 Standards

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Year SOAP UDDI WSDL

1999 Microsoft develops SOAP along with DevelopMentor and Userland - -

2000 Microsoft submits SOAP to the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) for review

IBM offers support for SOAP SOAP receives support from over 20 companies including Intel, Ariba etc. Microsoft submits SOAP v1.1 to W3C along with Ariba, CommerceOne,

DevelopMentor, HP, IBM, SAP, Userland Software etc. IBM reference implementation of SOAP v1.1 Release of SOAP v 1.2. by IBM W3C forms working group for standardizing SOAP

IBM, Microsoft, Ariba and 33 other companies team up to develop UDDI specs

UDDI Business Registry goes live The initiative gets widespread

industry support including Oracle, HP, Dell, Intel, Nortel, Sun Microsystems, Ford Motor, Webmethods etc.

 

WSDL 1.0 is developed and released by IBM, Microsoft and Ariba to describe Web Services for their SOAP toolkit

IBM releases WSDL Toolkit  

2001 SOAP extension by Microsoft, HP, Webmethods SOAP Security extensions by IBM and Microsoft Updated IBM Web Services Toolkit v 2.2 which supports UDDI, SOAP, and

WSDL ebXML Integrates SOAP into Messaging Services Specification Microsoft announces SOAP toolkit v2.0 Microsoft Publishes XML Web Services specifications for review W3C draft of SOAP 1.2 standard Sun supports Web services standards Microsoft Releases new XML Web Services Specifications  Microsoft submits a Web services related standard (DIME) to IETF

IBM releases UDDI4J, an open-source Java implementation of UDDI

RosettaNet registers 83 business process standards within UDDI

UDDI registry becomes live HP becomes registry operator UDDI.org releases UDDI v2 IBM offers its UDDI registry    SAP offers its UDDI registry IBM, HP, and SAP announces support

for UDDI4J  

WSDL 1.1 is published IBM, Microsoft along with

leading players, submits WSDL to W3C

IBM releases Web Services Invocation Framework (WSIF), complementary to WSDL

2002 Amazon.com Web Services Facility Supports XML/HTTP and SOAP  

UDDI is adopted by OASIS IBM releases UDDI registry

extensions NTT launches UDDI registry

IBM releases WSDL Explorer Web Application

Cape Clear releases free WSDL Editor

2003 SOAP Version 1.2 Published as a W3C recommendation OASIS ratifies UDDI v2.0 as an open standard

W3C releases WSDL 1.2

2005 - OASIS ratifies UDDI v3.0.2 as an open standard

-

2006 - IBM, Microsoft, and SAP close their public UDDI nodes

-

2007 - - WSDL 2.0 becomes a W3C recommendation

Process Model

Standardization processes unfold as a dynamic interplay of five activities:

resource pooling formulated by the involved firms, creation of linkages with communities of practice and standard institutions, signaling and implementation experimentsinstitutionalization and preservation of proprietary controlextension

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Process Model

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Resource Pooling

Firms were pooling resources to build Web services architecture stacks

IBM co-developed the SOAP/UDDI stack with Microsoft, Ariba, etc.IBM was leveraging the horizontal capabilities ingrained in its software divisions to ensure a unified approach Microsoft formulated its entire Internet strategy around SOAPResource pooling from smaller firms such as Ariba, DevelopMentor, Userland etc.

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Linkages

Linkage functions include promotion and dissemination of artifact logic, dissemination of specification, collaboration with other standard setting bodies, communities of practice etc.

Critical for the dominant players such as IBM and Microsoft to create strong linkages with the ecosystem partners

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Linkages Contd….

Dominant Players

WSDL SOAP UDDI Open Source Community

IBM • Microsoft• Ariba

Ariba • Java-based UDDI code,

• Eclipse code which was valued at about $40 million

Microsoft • IBM• eBay• Ariba

• DevelopMentor• Userland Software

Ariba

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Signaling & Implementation

Signaling is a mechanism available to convey the degree of commitment towards the standardization process

Announcements about potential new products/platforms, extensions of existing product/platforms, product/platform support for the standard etc. Implementations are in the form of reference implementations which are representative of actual usage scenarios.

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Signaling & Implementation Contd…

Microsoft was aggressive in incorporating SOAP into its offerings HP came out with its Web Services Platform, which supported UDDI, WSDL, SOAP and ebXML

Other key players such as Sybase, TIBCO, Vitria, Borland, Mercury Interactive and smaller players such as Cape Clear, IONA, Flamenco, etc. started supporting the basic Web services standards

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Institutionalisation

Firms create and maintain institutionalisation through industry councils, technical committees, and trade associations

Industry associations educate, and negotiate with other institutions and governmental unitsInstitutionalisation can be seen in the case of UDDI, wherein four companies (IBM, Microsoft, NTT and SAP) were operating the UDDI Business registries

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Extension

Network effects allow software platform firms to secure a dedicated user base, supported by complementers who in turn attract more users

Complementers provide applications which are compatible to the platformComplementers trigger indirect network effects by making available useful, innovative and compatible software applications

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Extension Contd….

Firms involved in IT standardisation can have two pronged strategy

with the primary strategy of promoting network effects by large scale adoption by new users the secondary strategy of enhancing value to the end users by leveraging indirect network effects by promoting adoption by complementers.

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Extension Contd….

Firms have two ways to extract revenue from standard setting:

primary licensing or extending proprietary control of higher-level services (layers)

IBM and Microsoft own significant intellectual property

This gives them motivation enough to work towards extensions to standards while maintaining their proprietary rights

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Extension Contd….

Microsoft follows the extension strategy It first announces support for a standard and works with the standard bodiesFollowed by partial/full support for the standard and adding extensions which work only with Microsoft interfacesAs Microsoft enjoys a dominant position, the increased use of proprietary extensions results in the Microsoft version to be the dominant one

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Conclusion

One of the first efforts to analyse the process of IT interoperability standards formation involving inter-related standardization efforts progressing in parallelThe process of standard creation involves five intertwined states

the standardization processes unfold as a dynamic interplay of these five activities, albeit not in a linear-fashion

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Conclusion

Standardization efforts of SOAP, UDDI and WSDL were progressing in parallel

dominant firms were IBM and Microsoft playing a dominant role in not only proposing the standards, but also in deciding their evolution and final adoption

A specification may be selected due to not only transaction efficiencies but also because of resource and existing technology path dependencies

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Conclusion

Standard setting tactics are influenced by prior relationships

more closely firms work on technical committees, more likely they will collaborate for a standardisation initiative

Maintaining proprietary control was important for firms in extensions and later stages of standardization, thus influencing firms' decisions related to licensing agreements

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Conclusion

External factors such as COP play a significant role in defining the standards and the standard setting processDominant firms seem to agree for public ownership of basic layers, while they could enforce proprietary control over extensions or emerging top layer

Cause of concern for open source evangelists

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Future Research

Extend the analysis of activities to other standardization processesExamine the generalisability of the proposed model

examining the standardization efforts in other Web services standards such as WS-orchestration, WS-security, etc.

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Future Research

Use alternate forms of research design and data collection

Survey based research

Explore network relationship effects, especially at the level of dominant firm and bridge firm, standard-setting bodies and major sponsors, and COP

This would be particularly relevant in the context of emerging IT standards.

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Thank you

Jai_ganesh01@infosys.com

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