Recently, the Web Services Interoperability Organization (WS-I) has announced to have completed its interoperability standards work. The latest deliverables include the so-called “Basic Security Profile” and the “Reliable Secure Profile”. This gives rise to the question whether or not Web Services adopters can rely on interoperability and functionality of Web Services stacks, in particular in t...

This paper argues that, in a collaboration context, instead of Web services requiring client applications to comply with individual permutations of security configurations, a standardized mechanism should be established to ensure global security-interoperability. Such a solution would facilitate providing Web services in Grid Services contexts as well. A framework is proposed which comprises, i...