Offering User Profile as an XML Web Service

Abstract

In telecommunications, the User Profile is used to capture the user’s preferences, settings and personal data such as address/telephone lists, bookmarks, family photos, encryption keys, etc. In order to make the User profile available to any desired application or service at the same time as to allow the user to access and modify it at anytime anywhere and on any terminal, we propose in this paper to offer the User Profile as an XML Web service. As an XML Web service, the User Profile will be accessible from any application over the operator’s borders and firewall, and without the need for specific middleware platforms. Ubiquitous and customised access to applications and services can thus be a reality. The paper proposes an early outline of how the User Profile can be defined as an XML Web service.