The vision of both Sun and iPlanet is that Web services will evolve into smart Web services, providing significantly greater value and a richer user experience. Smart Web services will provide a high level of customization and personalization, well beyond the generic Web services of today. This will be achieved through the addition of context awareness, multinet capabilities, quality of service (meeting user needs with the least amount of effort invested by the user), and fully open interfaces.

Sun™ ONE
The Sun™ Open Net Environment (Sun ONE) is an open framework that supports Web services today and lays the foundation for the smart Web services of tomorrow. Sun ONE enables organizations to create, assemble, and deploy smart Web services.

The basic elements of the Sun ONE framework include:

• Platform: Technologies that ensure a stable, predictable experience through operating systems, virtual machines, devices, and hardware
• Service: Creation and Assembly Tools and technologies that provide an intuitive development and assembly environment tailored to developers and business professionals
• Identity and Policy: Technologies that house and organize identity, context, roles, security, user management profiles, and user administration information
• Service Container: Technologies that make it easier to provide smart Web services to end users
• Service Delivery: Technologies that locate, connect, aggregate, present, communicate, personalize, notify, and deliver content
• Service Integration: Technologies that connect to existing systems and applications
• Applications and Web Services: Technologies that provide service components and applications to deliver key business services

Some useful articles:

• Web Services from the Developer's Perspective 
  
  
• Building Web Services 
  
  
• Smart Tools for Smart Web Services 
  
  
• Making Web Services a Reality 
  
  
• SUN's .NET Effect 
  
  
• Using XML and Java technology to Develop Web Services: Keeping Migration Paths Open 
  
  
• Securing Web Services using the JavaTM Platform and XML 
  
  
• Using ForteTM for JavaTM to Develop and Deploy Web Services  
  
  
• XML Distilled: Essential Ingredients for Today's Web Applications  
  
  
• Creating Web Service with Java™ Technology and XML