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Subject: RE: [ws-rx] Proposed NEW ISSUE: Alignment and Refinement of Definitions for Delivery Assurances


Title: RE: [ws-rx] Proposed NEW ISSUE: Alignment and Refinement of Definitions for Delivery Assurances

Tom:

Step #1 looks OK to me.

Step #2 I am not sure what we try to achieve here.
I see no harm having the DAs *defined*  as predicates, independently from the functions that support them. I have no issue with leaving out any mention of the protocol or other functions in these defs. If we try to identify RMS/RMD functions that support them, that may be useful as an implementation guide, but do they need to be part of the definition?

This said, I still think DAs could be defined more precisely - e.g. AtLeastOnce is vague as where the error should be raised - and whether these errors should translate into app notifications or some form of exposure to app (there does not seem to be any requirement here - yet this can be seen as part of the contract RMD-AD, and also maybe RMS-AS...)

Step #3: although the protocol seems to do unnecessary efforts when AtMostOnce DA alone is required, I must say that from the user viewpoint this DA still makes sense: the elimination of duplicates is the most important aspect of it. The inadequacy of the protocol to this DA is mostly an optimization issue (and also an unnecessary implementation burden for some cases). The other difference with AtLeastOnce DA, from the RMD-AD contract perspective, is that in the latter, an error must be raised if the message is dropped after reception.

I think the issue is a more general one: should this DA as well as other DAs be part of this spec, now that the protocol has a life of its own? I'd prefer to see DAs expressed in a different doc, or at least in a clearly separate section. Looks like another editorial issue.

Regards,
Jacques


-----Original Message-----
From: Tom Rutt2
Sent: Wednesday, September 28, 2005 10:17 AM
To: wsrx
Subject: [ws-rx] Proposed NEW ISSUE: Alignment and Refinement of Definitions for Delivery Assurances


NEW ISSUE - Alignment and Refinement of Definitions for Delivery Assurances

Description:
I took an action Item to align the Delivery Assurance definition text in
the body document with the resolution of Issue 009.

Source: Tom Rutt, Fujitsu

Justification:
The resolution of Issue 009 is documented at:
http://www.oasis-open.org/apps/org/workgroup/ws-rx/download.php/14682/ReliableMessagingIssues.xml#i009
:

It is best if the Delivery assurances are defined in only one place in
the document.

The definition of Delivery assurances is simplified by introducing the
concept of Reliability Functions.

Proposals:

The proposal to resolve this ISSUE is presented in Three Steps.


Step 1) of Proposed Resoluton: Change the use of in line definitions in
the proposal for Issue 009 to references to the definitions in section

Resulting text for Proposal for Issue 009:

"
<wsrm:DeliveryAssertion mode="[AtLeastOnce|AtMostOnce|ExactlyOnce]"
ordered="[xs:boolean]"? ...="" >


/wsrm:DeliveryAssertion
A policy assertion that makes a claim as to the delivery assurance policy
observed by the destination endpoint.


/wsrm:DeliveryAssertion/@mode
This required attribute specifies which delivery assurance is asserted.


A value of 'AtMostOnce' means that the Delivery Assurance "at Most Once,
defined in section xxx, is asserted.


A value of 'AtLeastOnce' means that the Delivery Assurance "At Least Once",
defined in section xxx, is asserted..


A value of 'ExactlyOnce' means that the Delivery Assurance "Exactly Once",
defined in section xxx, is asserted.


/wsrm:DeliveryAssertion/@ordered
This attribute, of type xs:boolean, specifies whether, or not, the
"in order" reliability function defined in section xxx is asserted. .
A value of 'true' asserts that the "in order" reliability function is
required.
A value of 'false' asserts that the "in order" reliability function is
not required.
If omitted, the default implied value is 'false'.
"


Step 2) of Proposed Resolution: Clarify Definitions of Delivery
assurances, using concept of reliability functions

The term "Delivery assurance" is used to refer to a set of engaged
reliability functions associated with a Reliable Messaging Sequence.

Fundamental Reliability Functions:
* Guaranteed Receipt:
o RM-Source must buffer the message, to allow for potential
re-transmission, until an acknowledgement is received from the
RM-Destination for that message.
o RM-Destination must return an acknowledgment upon successful receipt
of the message.
* Duplicate Elimination:
o No obligations on RM-Source.
o RM-Destination must not deliver to application destination any message
which has the same ID as a previously delivered message.

In addition, to allow the definition of Delivery assurance "at most
once", as in the resolution of Issue xx, the following "reliability
function" is defined
* Best Effort Delivery
o No obligations on RM-Source
o RM-Destination is allowed to abort delivery of received messages to
application destination if it cannot delivery the received message.

Note: the Best Effort Delivery function is really a function at all: it
has no obligations, while it does have a contractual permission for not
delivering a message which it has received. This does not seem to be a
valid reliability function.

The following table specifies the delivery assurances in terms of
engaged reliability functions.

Delivery Assurance |Guaranteed Receipt |Duplicate Elimination |Hold for
Prior |Best Effort Delivery
At least once y n n n
Exactly once y y n n
'At most once' y y n y

The following reliability function may be asserted along with any of the
above Delivery Assurances:

* In-order:
o Order is determined by the value of the RM message number. Ordered
delivery would mean that the messages would be delivered in ascending
order of the message number value.
o No obligations on RM-Source
o RM-Destination must hold a received message, for delivery to the
application destination, until all messages with smaller message number
within a sequence have been delivered to the application destination.

Note: The guaranteed delivery function is the only one which puts an
obligation on the rm-source. All of the reliability functions defined
above place obligations (or permissions in the case of "Best Effort
Delivery") on the rm-destination.


------------------

Step 3) of Proposal: Refinement of DA Definitions Required to Resolve
Discrepancy with traditional semantics of "At Most Once"

The delivery assurance "at most once", as defined in WS-rm spc, seems
out of place. If the ws-rm spec is going to allow for "best effort
Delivery" as a conformant behaviour contract for an RMD under special
circumstances, why is it only allowed in combination with Guaranteed
Delivery and Duplicate Elimination reliability functions.

I propose two ways to fix this discrepancy:

3 a) Remove the concept of "at most once" as defined in this spec.

The traditional use of the term "at most once" delivery assurance
requires engagement of the duplicate elimination function without
requiring the guaranteed delivery function. Since it has been agreed
that the ws-rm protocol will always support the guaranteed Receipt
function, this traditional concept of "at most once" is not compatible
with this protocol.

2 b) define two new delivery assurances with Best effort Delivery (for
consistency)

Delivery Assurance |Guaranteed Receipt |Duplicate Elimination |Hold for
Prior |Best Effort Delivery
At least once BED y n n y
Exactly once BED y y n y


Approach 3b) adds complexity to the Delivery assurance assertion
mechanism. It does not seem to go along with the concept of Reliable
messaging, and systems which do this should be considered as acting
outside the scope of the WS-rm specification.

I prefer proposal 3a).


--
----------------------------------------------------
Tom Rutt        email: tom@coastin.com; trutt@us.fujitsu.com
Tel: +1 732 801 5744          Fax: +1 732 774 5133



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