Key factors for secure Web services

Awalt believes that Web services are moving toward systems that will give customers access to data that resides outside of the firewall with the ability to modify and cancel any transactions that are performed. "It's going to be like the way you used to buy things from the Sears catalog," said Awalt. "It's static data, data that's potentially a little stale, but it's been put outside the firewall for you to use, access, and to make your own transactions." Awalt doesn't believe concepts such as the two-phase commit process will necessarily catch on because companies won't trust other companies or consumers to have access to their data and business logic. Only in cases where companies work with trusted partners does he see them letting others have access to data and systems to transact business. "The most successful Web services implementations," Awalt said, "will be those that emulate the real worldand how we've traditionally done transactions over the phone or through the mail." According to Awalt, other issues companies must contend with involve architectural concerns that have an impact on the infrastructure, support, and maintenance of the system. The number of users the system must support is a key factor. Companies will have to determine how to load test to ensure that their infrastructure can handle the traffic generated both securely and reliably. "A lot of the issues are the same issues you have with building systems in the first place or building your first significant systems on the Internet," said Awalt. Considerations along these lines include:

Where the actual boxes are installed
What resides outside the firewall
How the organisation connects to the Internet
What kind of redundancy and communication methods are in place

One issue some organisations may encounter, said Awalt, is that they will go too far with Web services offerings. They will attempt to turn everything into a Web service and take a performance hit because of it. Therefore, knowing the limitations of the infrastructure and understanding the impact of Web services is critical. Awalt also said that depending on what type of services it plans to offer, an organisation may have to find a standard way of moving data. Standards help to avoid the trap of doing custom applications for every service offered. Pilot apps
When you are first determining your Web services architecture and standards, pilot applications are a good way for companies to get started, Awalt said, because they allow you to learn the necessary tools and technologies and to develop proof of concept. Launching pilot applications can help organisations perform the following important steps:

Assess risks
Develop architectures
Resolve deployment and production issues

Awalt said that while using pilot applications to learn about Web services, organisations also must use them to target an opportunity that will have a meaningful return. The pilot applications must therefore serve a real purpose beyond simply acting as a learning tool. Critical components on the path to integration
Web services provide companies with a valuable means of linking different processes and units to provide customers with seamless access to all of their offerings. Achieving this kind of integration requires careful planning up front to ensure secure and reliable communications. Using pilot programs to assess needs is a good starting point that can help organisations tackle the big issues, such as tight security and reliable architecture.

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