Business processes are extending beyond organisational boundaries and companies want to take advantage of new opportunities quickly while reducing the cost of doing business, which is where Web services can play a key role.
Speaking at CAWorld in Las Vegas this week, Paul Lipton, a technology strategist in the office of the CTO at Computer Associates, said Web services - which enable one application to find another and share data, particularly in a business-to-business environment - can help companies to both save and make money.
"Web services allow a business to drive operational efficiencies, extend the life and return of assets and get its business processes to work together, thus saving an organisation money, but they also open up new markets and revenue opportunities and provide a broader user base, allowing it to make more money too.
"The vision behind Web services is universal interoperability and in order to achieve this, they need to be independent of computer language, operating systems and devices, which is why non-proprietary standards such as XML are used for these services."
He said the next big thing in the Web services environment is federated Web services, which will see federations of organisations linking through Web services and sharing information.
"Of course, in order for such a concept to succeed, a federated management and security policy needs to be adopted, so that only the appropriate information is shared with the correct users, and so that managers are always aware of who is using their services and what they are doing.
"Proper standards, strong security and good management will be the key drivers for this next wave of Web services."
He said that in his opinion, we will see an array of rich and intricate Web services developed within the next 12 to 24 months, but that - while this will increase the value of these services - the security risks and challenges will also increase.
"We need to remember that Web services is a new technology, which must be given time to grow, develop and mature. There will inevitably be problems as this service develops, but we must not allow these potential problems to frighten us away from continuing to develop the technology.
"If we remain focused on continuing to develop Web services, we will soon reach a point where the promise of a global e-infrastructure can be truly realised."
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