Administering web services - Policy (WS-Policy)

WS-Policy is an interoperability standard that is used to describe and communicate the policies of a web service so that service providers can export policy requirements in a standard format. Clients can combine the service provider requirements with their own capabilities to establish the policies required for a specific interaction. This product conforms to the WS-Policy specification, so that policy information can be exchanged and received in accordance with the WS-Policy standard.

Web services are self-contained, modular applications that can be described, published, located, and invoked over a network. They implement a services oriented architecture (SOA), which supports the connecting or sharing of resources and data in a very flexible and standardized manner. Services are described and organized to support their dynamic, automated discovery and reuse.