WS-Notification is a family of related specifications that define a standard Web services approach to notification using a topic-based publish/subscribe pattern. It includes: standard message exchanges to be implemented by service providers that wish to participate in Notifications, standard message exchanges for a notification broker service provider (allowing publication of messages from entities that are not themselves service providers), operational requirements expected of service providers and requestors that participate in notifications, and an XML model that describes topics. The WS-Notification family of documents includes three normative specifications: WS-BaseNotification, WS-BrokeredNotification, and WS-Topics.

The goal of WS-BaseNotification [Gra06] is to standardize the terminology, concepts, operations, WSDL and XML needed to express the basic roles involved in Web services publish and subscribe for notification message exchange.

This specification defines the Web services interface for the NotificationBroker. A NotificationBroker is an intermediary between message Publishers and message Subscribers. A NotificationBroker decouples NotificationProducers and Notification Consumers and can provide advanced messaging features such as demand-based publishing and load-balancing. A NotificationBroker also allows publication of messages from entities that are not themselves service providers. This is very similar to a traditional Message Oriented Middleware model.

The NotificationBroker interface includes standard message exchanges to be implemented by NotificationBroker service providers along with operational requirements expected of service providers and requestors that participate in brokered notifications.

The goal of WS-BrokeredNotification is to standardize message exchanges involved in Web services publish and subscribe of a message broker.

WS-Topics defines four topic expression dialects that can be used as subscription expressions in subscribe request messages and other parts of the WS-Notification system. It further specifies an XML model for describing metadata associated with topics. This specification should be read in conjunction with the WS-BaseNotification specification.

MUWS defines how an Information Technology resource connected to a network provides manageability interfaces such that the IT resource can be managed locally and from remote locations using Web services technologies. MUWS enables management of distributed information technology (IT) resources using Web services. Many distributed IT resources use different management interfaces. By leveraging Web service technology, MUWS enables easier and more efficient management of IT resources. This is accomplished by providing a flexible, common framework for manageability interfaces that leverage key features of Web services protocols. Universal management and interoperability across the many and various types of distributed IT resources can be achieved using MUWS. The types of management capabilities exposed by MUWS are the management capabilities generally expected in systems that manage distributed IT resources. Examples of manageability functions that can be performed via MUWS include:monitoring the quality of a service ，enforcing a service level agreement, controlling a task and managing a resource lifecycle.

The MOWS specification is based on the concepts and definitions expressed in the MUWS specification [Kre06].