Identity Management Critical
As developers create Web Services that provide access to data to an ever-expanding federated audience, identity management is critical. When users present credentials to access a Web Service, there must be validation that they're part of a larger system that allows them to access what they're requesting - just like when you present a debit card to make a purchase or get a cash advance at the grocery store. If you could only use that card at ATM machines run by the credit card issuer, that would be a heavyweight model; a non-distributed security model. Instead, the card issuer enables you to use the card virtually anywhere, assuring the store of your security credentials to do the transaction.

Similarly, such a distributed model for Web Services enables developers to create greater value by emphasizing the service and not verification of security credentials. While an identity management function doesn't have to be embedded in the offering, the Web Service needs to be able to connect with identity management software through lightweight standards; this enables developers to focus on the service offering.

Greater Mobility
Finally, with the increasing need for Web Services to run on a variety of screens - desktop, laptop, mobile devices, and set-top boxes - Web Services developers need an application infrastructure that is simple enough to accommodate all of those possibilities. The emphasis is on quick access to data and multiple fast reads from a database table with greater intelligence on the edge. Where enterprise-class applications that offer all the "-ilities" were the focus in the past, lightweight, Web-scale applications that can be used on a range of screens - particularly on mobile devices - will continue to grown in dominance.

For example, the iPhone or Blackberry could become a next-generation publishing platform, or perhaps provide contextual intelligence that offers highly targeted location-based advertising or other information relevant to appropriate potential customers. But to create such services, developers must be able to easily leverage data services and identity management capabilities; a lightweight framework that provides both would be ideal.

Demand for Simpler Framework Will Be Addressed
To enable enterprises to meet the ever-growing demand to deliver new secure Web Services and quickly and easily leverage data across the business, a simpler SOA framework specifically designed for smaller projects is needed.

Web scale is the new enterprise class that organizations will all aspire to. As work continues in developing and promoting lightweight standards, we believe that enterprise developers will soon have a simpler platform that helps them significantly speed and simplify Web Service design and deployment.