August 24, 2004

WSE 2.0 on .NET Framework 2.0

The WSE team recently ran a series of test passes with WSE 2.0 on .NET Framework 2.0 Beta 1 (aka Whidbey or VS 2005). We tried both the shipping version of WSE 2.0 and a recompiled version, but experienced a number of problems with both.serial puzzle pirates

We know for sure that the soap.tcp transport is completely broken - incoming connections generally fail with a SocketException during Accept processing. We've also run into a number of problems associated with ASMX classes.serial puzzle pirates

We're working with the relevant parties on the Framework team to try to resolve these issues, we believe that most of them are caused by changes made to the Framework itself, not by problems in the WSE codebase. Of course, .NET Framework 2.0 is still beta software and this is therefore to be expected despite all the effort that goes into trying to ensure backward compatibility early in the development cycle.serial puzzle pirates

Current product plans are that WSE 2.0 will be supported on .NET Framework 2.0 when the Framework releases. Until then, we can't make any guarantees on whether the products will work together.serial puzzle pirates

Sorry folks :-(serial puzzle pirates

Posted by herveyw at 09:58 PM | Comments (2)

August 12, 2004

What's going on in WSE land?

The plate is full right now for the WSE team, we have three pieces of work underway concurrently keeping everyone on the team busy (along with all those summer vacations, of course).serial puzzle pirates

First up is the C# implementation of the WS-I compliance test tools. I doubt many people know that this is also developed by the WSE team. Right now, the focus is on completing the implementation and testing of various Basic Profile and Basic Security Profile assertions. The BSP assertions right now are limited to examining the message without unravelling the signatures and encryptions; further on down the road we're expecting that we'll be linking to tools to WSE itself in order to perform more detailed verification of secure messages.serial puzzle pirates

Second is WSE 2.0 Service Pack 2. Like SP1, this will include bug fixes for reported problems, so if you have a bug that is causing you problems make sure that you report it either on the WSE public newsgroup or to the feedback e-mail address in the documentation. Unlike SP1, SP2 will also include some new functionality in the form of additions to the built-in tokens and token issuers in the product. One of these will be a replacement for the existing Kerberos token in WSE 2.0 that will more closely track the Kerberos Token Profile being developed by the OASIS WSS Technical Committee. We'd like to see the folks on the TC accelerate the finalization of this profile as we're beginning to see demand for a more interoperable form. Unfortunately, I can't say anything about the other addition at the present time.serial puzzle pirates

Thirdly, we're progressing through the planning milestone for WSE 3.0. We're pretty much locked down on the plan of record for the products features and timing, we have a bunch of design work and some prototyping in progress as well. At the present time, I can't announce the details of the product but we believe that we've struck the right balance in what was a very tangled web of requirements, several of which were incompatible. What I can say is that we plan to adopt a more open approach to delivering public builds of the product for everyone to work with and provide feedback against. Once we have an initial build complete, we're hoping to release incremental builds on a very regular schedule up to the point of final release. This is like the Visual Studio Community Drops, only that, being WSE, we plan to go a little faster! We're adopting some modifications to our existing engineering process that we believe will allow us to meet those goals and execute more smoothly this time around.serial puzzle pirates

Posted by herveyw at 11:25 PM | Comments (4)