The new drop of the Web Services feature pack beta is available

It can be downloaded from the Early Programs site.

The beta, like the eventual GA version of the feature pack, is an optionally installable package. If you need the latest web services standards, you can add them onto WebSphere Application Server V6.1. If you don't, you can ignore it.

The latest beta is basically a fully functional version of the feature pack that is going through additional testing now. The feature pack has support for:

• Web Services Reliable Messaging (WS-RM)
• Web Services Addressing (WS-Addressing)
• SOAP Message Transmission Optimization Mechanism (MTOM)
• Web Services Secure Conversations (WS-SC)
• Java API for XML Web Services (JAX-WS 2.0)
• Java Architecture for XML Binding (JAXB 2.0)
• SOAP with Attachments API for Java (SAAJ 1.3)
• Streaming API for XML (StAX 1.0)

That's right - it's like Christmas morning for early adopting Java developers!