One year ago, Capient articulated the manner in which easily accessible registry networks will be key to the rise and long-term success of XML Web services. As XML Web service capabilities continue to be deployed by organizations, the need for registries to identify, organize and catalog service capabilities will increasingly play vital roles across business developer communities. A variety of registries currently exist, ranging from the public consortium-led Universal Description, Discovery and Integration network to stand-alone, prepackaged and vendor-managed UDDI specification-compliant registries and hybrid non-UDDI-compliant registries following public and/or proprietary specification formats.
Organizational demands are on the increase to make XML Web service capabilities available as widely, reliably and cost-effectively as possible to maximize return on investment. The key driver influencing decisions by potential business-integration customers will ultimately revolve around visibility and ease of accessibility to registries with the greatest number of useful XML Web service capabilities. Other decision influencers include XML Web service standards conformity and interoperability across the broadest range of computing environments and trust perceptions of the registry being utilized to federate XML Web service information.
