Word of the Day : WS-Transaction (WS-TX)

WS-Transaction (WS-TX)

WSTx (Web Services Transaction) is a set of XML markup specifications designed to permit the use of open, standard protocols for secure, reliable transactions across the Web. Three constituent standards were approved in April 2007:

• WS-Coordination
• WS-AtomicTransaction
• WS-BusinessActivity

The standards were created to accommodate two typical transaction patterns involving multiple, distributed software components and services:

1. Individual atomic transactions that represent the building blocks for more complex transactions among peers and partners

2. Web-based interactions that result in the exchange of goods, information, or services, usually called business activities.

WS-coordination refers to the mechanisms whereby atomic transactions may be composed into complete business activities, and thus also provides the glue that ties the overall WSTx environment together.

WSTx standards are overseen by a technical committee of the same name at OASIS. The technical committee is staffed with vendors and users of Web services technologies. On its Web pages, the committee describes its agenda as: "...to define a set of protocols to coordinate the outcomes of distributed application actions." Vendors involved in the WSTx committee include Adobe, BEA Systems, Fujitsu, Hitachi, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, SAP and TIBCO, among numerous others.