The WebComposition Architecture Model (WAM)

WAM is a modeling language for designing distributed, organization-spanning Web applications.

It is especially designed for federated scenarios, in which multiple organizations access each other's protected Web applications and Web services through the exchange of security tokens. This is achieved with the help of technologies like WS-Federation and SAML, as well as support systems like idFS. The architecture models reflect the organizational boundaries, the trust relationships between them, their Web applications / services and access dependencies.

WAM is the result of a WebComposition research program and comprises:

• a graphical modeling notation for drawing architectures
• formal semantics for defining their meaning
• a machine-readable format for storing and exchanging models
• tools for planning architectures and supporting their lifecycle