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Microsoft, Partners Tune Web Services

Posted on: Saturday, 15 May 2004, 06:00 CDT

SEATTLE - Microsoft and its partners are using groups of Web services protocols to develop specifications that support remote management of servers and a plug-and-play method for connecting devices to a network.

The specifications are designed to make it easier for IT to upgrade and manage networks. For example, a printer could be added to a network and made available to desktops without having to install client software.

Last week at its 13th annual Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC), Microsoft introduced Web services for Management Extension for Windows Server and Devices Profile for Web services.

The specifications provide a glimpse of how Microsoft plans to make it easier for IT to support connectivity and services across the Windows platform of clients, devices and servers in its future operating systems starting with Longhorn. Longhorn is slated for release in 2006.

"Web services are the next IP, the next layer of functionality in the network stack that you do not want to reinvent," says Jeff Schlimmer, program manager for advanced Web services at Microsoft.

Both specifications are unique undertakings for Microsoft in that the protocols can be used with non-Windows platforms.

"Web services will have a key role [in the future]," said Bill Gates, chief software architect for Microsoft. "It will be the primary device connectivity in Longhorn."

Microsoft highlighted that fact by introducing the Devices Profile specification it co-authored with Intel, Lexmark and Ricoh. The specification details how devices such as printers, imaging hardware and eventually mobile phones and other handhelds could use Web services to signal they are connected to the network, as well as to advertise their services and use other services. Clients could attach to the devices over a network without having to install drivers or other software.

Picture this

Microsoft and its partners have proposed a specification to make it easier to add, find and use devices on a network. The first version of the Devices Profile focuses on printing and imaging devices, which are expected to be purchased by the millions each year.

"The big story with laptops that are occasionally connected to the enterprise is that users have problems accessing printers, and knowledge management and other software," says Jason Bloomberg, an analyst with ZapThink. "Often those users are limited to getting on the intranet."

Microsoft and its partners plan to submit Device Profile this fall to the Universal Plug and Play Forum for consideration as the foundation for the UPnP 2.0 Device Architecture.

Microsoft also introduced the Network Connected Device Driver Development Kit, for customers who want to implement Devices Profile and hook it to the current Windows Plug and Play subsystem.

Conspicuously absent from the effort is HP the world's largest printer manufacturer.

"We see a role for all devices to be on the network, and Web services will provide that capability" says Joe Keller, product manager for HR." But we want to see the Devices Profile specification in a standards body so everyone has equal say in the way it is developed."

Devices Profile relies on a collection of existing Web services protocols Microsoft is developing with its partners, including WSDiscovery WS-Addressing, WS-Eventing and WS-Policy

"We are bringing Web services to the devices side so [those devices] can communicate with the Web services infrastructure," said Peter McKiernan, lead product manager in the Developer and Platform Evangelism group at Microsoft. "This is a way to reduce some of the headaches IT faces when they work with devices."

Devices Profile will be supported in Indigo, the services bus technology under development for Longhorn. And Longhorn's user interface will have a hardware and devices folder that will include devices found on the network through Device Profile.

Device Profile is not the first specification of its kind. Java has Jini for connecting devices, but it requires that every device have a Java Virtual Machine.

Copyright Network World Inc. May 10, 2004

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