Microsoft Delivers Latest Developer Tools for Building Advanced, More Secure Web Services

REDMOND, Wash., Dec. 16, 2002 — Highlighting industry demand for the latest Web services capabilities, Microsoft Corp. today announced key companies, including F5 Networks, WestGlobal and WRQ Inc., that are taking advantage of Web Services Enhancements 1.0 (WSE) for Microsoft® .NET, which gives Visual Studio®
.NET developers support for the latest Web services specifications, such as WS-Security, WS-Routing and WS-Attachments. The news coincides with Microsoft’s announcement of the release to Web (RTW) of WSE 1.0, following the technical preview delivered in August 2002.

Available via download, WSE works with Visual Studio .NET and the .NET Framework so developers can quickly add a few lines of code to their Web services applications to keep pace with the latest industry advancements. In addition to its ability to quickly build new Web services solutions, WSE has been embraced by customers and industry partners as an important tool for connecting to existing systems

“We are working with Microsoft’s WSE and Visual Studio .NET to help customers radically shorten their time to market when building and deploying Web services,”
said Jim Ritchings, vice president of F5 Networks, the leading provider of Application Traffic Management products.
“As a result of WSE, F5 Networks can provide unprecedented network automation and optimization for rapid and secure deployment of XML Web services and applications.”

WestGlobal, a leading provider of software for Web Services Business Management, is using WSE and Visual Studio .NET to enhance its mScape software to support the new WS-Routing and WS-Security specifications critical for Web services.

“WestGlobal mScape enables the enterprise to optimize the delivery and use of Web services. With WSE, we are able to provide the needed security and routing infrastructure that our customers are demanding, creating the best and most productive environment for supporting our customers,”
said Paul Acton, CEO of WestGlobal.

WRQ, a leader in host emulation, extension and integration, also is a key WSE provider.
“With WSE, our mutual customers benefit from the new security features when they adapt and reuse their mission-critical host systems in new ways,”
said Shaun Wolfe, president and COO of WRQ.
“Working with WRQ, customers can extend their Microsoft development environments by exposing host data and logic to build new secure applications within the .NET Framework.”

Since the introduction of the technical preview in August 2002, WSE has gone through rigorous testing and customer review to reach the milestone of RTW of WSE 1.0. WSE is built on existing XML Web Services standards such as XML and SOAP, while providing the following advanced capabilities:

  • Security. It can help secure XML Web services across platforms and trust domains, including digital signing and encryption of SOAP messages that are compliant with the WS-Security specification, jointly introduced by Microsoft, IBM Corp. and VeriSign Inc. in April 2002 and submitted to OASIS in June 2002.

  • Routing. It can route an XML Web service through intermediaries using the WS-Routing specification, which describes how to place message addresses in the SOAP message header and enables SOAP messages to travel serially to multiple destinations along a message path. The route a SOAP message takes to an XML Web service can be transparently delegated among Web servers.

  • Attachments. Communication between XML Web services can contain attachments that are not serialized into XML. The WSDK provides the ability to add attachments to SOAP messages following the WS-Attachments specification. WS-Attachments was jointly submitted to the IETF by Microsoft and IBM.

  • Extensible framework. WSE is an extensible pipeline for SOAP message processing. Developers can extend the built-in functionality of the system to customize its encryption and signing capabilities to support proprietary security infrastructures. Custom logic also can be incorporated into the pipeline to provide additional functionality such as auditing, logging, or store and forward.

Future versions of the WSE will provide Visual Studio developers with rapid implementations of the latest advanced Web services capabilities.

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“MSFT”
) is the worldwide leader in software, services and Internet technologies for personal and business computing. The company offers a wide range of products and services designed to empower people through great software — any time, any place and on any device.

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