The Web Services Dynamic Discovery Specification, a/k/a WS-Discovery (the "Specification"), was developed by Microsoft*, with the assistance of BEA Systems, Canon Inc., and Intel (collectively, the "Co-Developers"). The new Web services specification, WS-Discovery, describes a way for a Web service to easily find and connect with other Web services over a network automatically. The publication of the specification is an effort to expand the existing Web services architecture to computing and peripheral devices that are not typically reachable through Web services, such as computer peripherals, computing appliances, and consumer electronics.

Complimentary with UDDI, WS-Discovery builds on the core Web services architecture of secure, reliable and transacted Web services to provide a specification that is flexible enough to be applied to scenarios that span the enterprise, the home and devices. This specification defines a way to locate services on a network with a minimum of networking services (e.g., no DNS or UDDI directory services). When coming online, the service will simply ask the network, via WS-Discovery, "what services are available to me?" and the services enabled with WS-Discovery will answer with a list of available services and a connection can be established. Where such services like DNS and UDDI exists WS-Discovery will transition to using those richer network services to reduce network traffic.

For more information, read the complete specification. Last update: October, 2004.

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