Implementing conflict of interest assertions for Web services matchmaking process

A Web service is defined as an autonomous unit of application logic that provides either some business functionality or information to other applications through an Internet connection. Web services are based on a set of XML standards such as simple object access protocol (SOAP), universal description, discovery and integration (UDDI), and Web services description language (WSDL). The benefits of adopting Web services over traditional business-to-business applications include faster time to production, convergence of disparate business functionalities, a significant reduction in total cost of development, and easy to deploy business applications for trading partners. However, Web services architectures are built on an insecure, unmonitored, and shared environment, which is open to events such as security threats. Security concerns are the major barrier that prevents many business organizations from implementing or employing Web services. This paper discusses one of the classical security policies that deal with conflict of interest - the Chinese wall security policy. The paper then extends this concept into specifying and implementing conflict of interest assertions in the newly developed WS-Policy. WS-Policy is an XML representation that provides a grammar for expressing Web services policies, to allow service locators to have a common interpretation of security requirements in the matchmaking process. Further, this paper also describes a prototype Web service called "CIRService" for supporting conflict of interest assertions in matchmaking process. The paper will conclude with identification of further research into the area of identifying hierarchical structure and relationship among Web services, to be considered in the matchmaking process.