[no subject]

ActivityService and ActivityLifecycleService

There are two  distinct "interfaces" to the  context service - the one
that a  user of a context   sees (essentially Begin), which  returns a
context that  can then be  sent one requests  to services, and the one
that ALS-es use to register with the context service. The intention is
that the   former be mandated,  whereas the   latter  is optional. So,
WS-Context would    mandate how you    get a  context  (that   may  be
transactional, secure, replication   enhanced, ...) but  not how  that
context was  created.   However,  for  those application  and  service
developers who wanted  to standardise on  context creation, there'd be
the optional  ALS.  The  WS-Context specification doesn't   make  that
distinction between optional and mandatory, though WS-CF does refer to
it.


WS-Context   provides  a   mechanism  for   creating   activities: the
ActivityService (of course, this should  be changed to ContextService)
PortType. An ActivityService may be used  to create activities of more
than one type. Each type is identified by a protocol identifier.

An ActivityService may be used to create activities for a protocol in 
assocation with an ActivityLifecycleService.

When    a   Begin  message   is    sent  to  the   ContextService  (or
ActivityService), it contacts  each registered ALS  to get it to  send
back a context element  for the ultimate  SOAP header block. Once  all
ALS-es have been contacted that are mapped into that specific activity
type (e.g.,transaction and security), the finished context information
is returned to the original invoker of the ActivityService.
--mime-boundary-interchange-404f5e99--