1.3 Overview

Active Directory Web Services (ADWS) permits access to Active Directory [MS-ADTS] via the use of common SOAP-based Web Service protocols such as WS-Transfer [WXFR] and WS-Enumeration [WSENUM]. These protocols operate on an XML [XML10] view of the data stored in the Active Directory directory service. The same XML view is shared by all the protocols in the ADWS protocol set. This document specifies that shared XML view.

Additionally, the protocols share a selection language, derived from XPath 1.0 [XPATH], that is used to specify which aspect of the XML view is operated on. That shared selection language is also specified in this document.

This document also specifies other shared cross-protocol aspects of ADWS, such as the endpoints used and shared SOAP headers and SOAP fault details [SOAP1.2-1/2003].

Finally, this document provides a mechanism for performing a range retrieval operation through some Web Service protocols in the ADWS protocol set. Range retrieval, as specified in section 2.7, allows for returning only a portion of the complete set of values of a multivalued attribute, or specifying that only a certain portion of the set of values of a multivalued attribute be retrieved. For the same purpose, it defines an extension to the shared XML view of data that incorporates this range retrieval extension.

Note that this document does not define a protocol. Rather, it serves as a common repository for information used across the entire ADWS protocol set. For operations such as range retrieval, it provides common extensions to [WXFR] and [WSENUM], which are used by certain protocols within the ADWS protocol set.<1>