Heinzl, Steffen and Schmeling, Benjamin (2010):
Using XML schema to improve writing, validation, and structure of WS-policies.
In: Proceedings of the 2010 ACM Symposium on Applied Computing (SAC), pp. 2422-2429,
2010 ACM Symposium on Applied Computing (SAC), Sierre, Switzerland, [Conference or Workshop Item]

Abstract

WS-Policies provide a standard to describe non-functional properties of web services. These properties are usually defined by domain-specific assertions. In some domains, for example security, nested assertions are heavily used to formalize detailed properties. Since the WS-Policy schema syntactically allows the use of arbitrary child elements for the elements defined in the WS-Policy namespace, the validation of policy documents against concrete policy schemata is also complicated. Additionally, policies become bloated by requiring the use of nested policies that are often empty or just containing one entry.

In this paper, we suggest to enhance the XML schema of concrete policies to allow for easier writing, better validation, simpler structure, and better tool support when working with policies. The enhancements are realized using domain-specific policy elements and omitting unnecessary nested policy elements. A template for enhancing the XML schema to support these requirements is provided. Old policy documents still remain compatible with the new schema. The proposed improvements are applied to a complex concrete policy, namely WS-SecurityPolicy.

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