Via NewsForge, Integration Developer News reports on a new WS- spec: WS-Discovery. The spec is designed to make web services work among both wired and wireless devices on a local network.
When reading about WS-Discovery, I keep thinking of a similar technology that is already out there: Rendezvous/Zeroconf. WS-Discovery seems like a very specialized solution that Rendezvous/Zeroconf may have already solved. I’m sure that the way everything works is quite different, but on the surface it just “feels” the same.
I’m quite excited about what WS-Discovery might be able to do for mobile and context-specific applications. For example:
mobile device: Hey! I’m here! What services are available to me?
WS-Discovery server: there is local access to the following services: foo, bar, baz.
mobile device: Sweet! I know about baz. I’m going to use it. Thanks, WS-Discovery server! <cheezy grin>
Update: after some poking around, I managed to find the WS-Discovery spec at MSDN. I already have a headache from a cold/flu, so I’m not going to read it in detail right now. It looks just about as complex and painful as any other WS- spec that has come down the road.