How XWS-Security and XML Digital Signature API Are Related

Before getting into specifics, it is important to see how XWS-Security and XML Digital Signature API are related. In this release of the Java WSDP, XWS-Security is based on non-standard XML Digital Signature APIs.

XML Digital Signature API is an API that should be used by Java applications and middleware that need to create and/or process XML Signatures. It can be used by Web Services Security (the goal for a future release) and by non-Web Services technologies (for example, signing documents stored or transferred in XML). Both JSR 105 and JSR 106 (XML Digital Encryption APIs) are core-XML security components. (See http://www.jcp.org/en/jsr/detail?id=106 for more information about JSR 106.)

XWS-Security does not currently use the XML Digital Signature API or XML Digital Encryption APIs. XWS-Security uses the Apache libraries for XML-DSig and XML-Enc. The goal of XWS-Security is to move toward using these APIs in future releases.