Tuesday  2003-01-21   Web of Services

Dancing with many partners

Existing specifications for Web services describe the indivisible units of interactions. It has become clear that taking the next step in the development of Web services will require the ability to compose and describe the relationships between lower-level services. Although differing terminology is used in the industry, such as orchestration, collaboration, coordination, conversations, etc., the terms all share a common characteristic of describing linkages and usage patterns between Web services. For the purpose of this document, and without prejudice, we use the term choreography as a label to denote this space. [...] The Web Services Choreography Working Group, part of the Web Services Activity, is chartered to create the definition of a choreography, language(s) for describing a choreography, as well as the rules for composition of, and interaction among, such choreographed Web services. The language(s) should build upon the foundation of the Web Service Description Language 1.2 (WSDL 1.2).

from "Web Services Choreography Working Group Charter"

This new W3C working group's importance is obvious: web services industry needs "the ability to compose and describe the relationships between lower-level services". However the term "choreography" is not entirely welcome as it carries deterministic outlook that precludes spontaneity and emergent behavior.