- Overview: What Is UDDI?
- Background
- Why Implement UDDI?
- Features in Windows Server 2003
- Planning for UDDI
- Configuring UDDI
- UDDI Data Schema
- Conclusion
Features in Windows Server 2003
Microsoft Windows Server 2003 incorporates UDDI capabilities into the operating system as an optional component. This service can be used within an enterprise or between businesses to publish, discover, share, and use web services. The UDDI specification builds on the Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP), Extensible Markup Language (XML), and Hypertext Transport Protocol/Secure (HTTPS) standards developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). Microsoft's implementation of UDDI is a SOAP/XML web service designed for use by developer tools and applications.
You don't need any additional software to run UDDI as an optional service, but you do need Internet Information Service (IIS) 6.0 installed. UDDI also utilizes ASP.NET, .NET Runtime, and the Microsoft Data Engine (MSDE). The MSDE is the default database engine that UDDI uses, although UDDI can be (and optimally should be) configured to use SQL Server. Microsoft's implementation of UDDI is compliant with the UDDI version 1 and version 2.0 programmer's API. Any applications written that work with these versions will work with Microsoft's UDDI implementation.
Microsoft's UDDI services consist of three components: the database, the application, and the Microsoft Management Console (MMC) snap-in. Two common configurations are to run the web-based interface and the APIs on multiple machines across the enterprise and have a dedicated database server, or to run the web-based interface and APIs on multiple machines and use a cluster configuration for the database.
Like DNS in Windows Server 2003, UDDI can be integrated into Active Directory (AD). Even if installed outside AD, however, UDDI can utilize the authentication and authorization services provided by AD. UDDI can also be installed as a service within AD, allowing applications, users, and administrators to easily locate all UDDI services in the enterprise. Security for UDDI is provided either by native Windows authentication methods using Kerberos tickets or by UDDI authentication, which uses authorization tokens. You can enable or disable any combination of these UDDI security methods in the Properties configuration dialog of the selected UDDI service (if you have Administrator rights).