Web Services Interoperability


The Web Services Interoperability Organization was an industry consortium created in 2002 and chartered to promote interoperability amongst the stack of web services specifications. WS-I did not define standards for web services; rather, it creates guidelines and tests for interoperability. July 2010, WS-I joined the OASIS, standardization consortium as a member section. In December 2017 i was completed after having reached its standardization objectives. The WS-I Standards are now maintained directly by the relevant technical committees within OASIS.
It was governed by a Board of Directors consisting of the founding members and two elected members. When it joined OASIS, other organizations have joined the WS-I technical committee including CA Technologies, JumpSoft and Booz Allen Hamilton.
The organization's deliverables included profiles, sample applications that demonstrate the profiles' use, and test tools to help determine profile conformance.

WS-I Profiles

According to WS-I, a profile is
A set of named web services specifications at specific revision levels, together with a set of implementation and interoperability guidelines recommending how the specifications may be used to develop interoperable web services.

The WS-I is not a certifying authority; thus, every vendor can claim to be compliant to a profile. However the use of the test tool is required before a company can claim a product to be compliant. See
In a 2003 interview, a WS-I spokesman said regarding false claims of compliance:
"We expect enforcement of that brand to be market-driven. We suspect no one wants to be the first person to be called on for making a bad claim... As establish the value of the WS-I Profiles, hopefully... vendors will realize that it's in their best interests to make sure they are all truly interoperable"
The activity related to the definition of tools for the compliance tests is continued by the relevant OASIS technical committees in charge of the standard maintenance.