Device and service templates for the Devices Profile for Web Services

The continual improvements in embedded devices and internet technologies increases the leverage of distributed systems in domains like home automation, industry automation, automotive and other application domains. the devices profile for web Services (DPWS) is a relative new specification based on Web services that can be used as a cross domain distributed system technology. Although the specification is almost finished and software tools are on the way there are some issues left to be done for pushing DPWS in a competitive direction. DPWS still misses a description mechanism that defines interfaces to the services/devices at development time. On the other hand DPWS provides the concept of device and service types which are used for dynamic discovery without proposing a formal type description. Such mechanism improves interoperability between related devices. This paper addresses this issue and proposes a template approach similar to Universal Plug and Play (UPnP).