IBM Web Services Security Architecture and Roadmap
This document describes a proposed strategy for addressing security within a Web service environment. It defines a comprehensive Web service security model that supports, integrates and unifies several popular security models, mechanisms, and technologies (including both symmetric and public key technologies) in a way that enables a variety of systems to securely interoperate in a platform- and language-neutral manner. It also describes a set of specifications and scenarios that show how these specifications might be used together.
The IT industry has been talking about Web services for almost two years. The benefits of having a loosely-coupled, language-neutral, platform-independent way of linking applications within organizations, across enterprises, and across the Internet are becoming more evident as Web services are used in pilot programs and in wide-scale production. Moving forward, our customers, industry analysts, and the press identify a key area that needs to be addressed as Web services become more mainstream: security. This document proposes a technical strategy and roadmap whereby the industry can produce and implement a standards-based architecture that is comprehensive yet flexible enough to meet the Web services security needs of real businesses.
