NEW Issue - Requirement for the use of SOAP and the location of aCoordinationContext in a message in unclear

[Andrew Wilkinson3 <awilkinson@uk.ibm.com>]

Protocol: AT and BA

Artifact:  Specs

Draft:  AT PR-01 and BA CD-03

Link to the documents referenced:

http://docs.oasis-open.org/ws-tx/wstx-wsat-1.1-spec-pr-01.pdf
http://www.oasis-open.org/apps/org/workgroup/ws-tx/download.php/20776/wstx-wsba-1.1-spec-cd-03.pdf

Issue type: Design

Issue description:

At present the only place within the AT and BA specs where a statement is 
made about the use of SOAP w.r.t propagating a CoordinationContext and the 
location of that context within a message is in section 4.2 of both 
specifications during the discussion of WS-Policy assertions. In this 
section in both specs it's stated that in the presence of an ATAsseration, 
AtomicOutcomeAssertion, or MixedOutcomeAssertion that:

"The transaction MUST be represented as a SOAP header in 
CoordinationContext format, as defined in WS-Coordination [WSCOOR]." (AT 
279-280, BA 386-387 and 399-400).

Without any further statement elsewhere in the specs on the use of SOAP to 
propagate a CoordinationContext or on the location of such a context in a 
message it could reasonably be inferred that when a policy assertion is 
present SOAP MUST be used and the CoordinationContext MUST be placed in 
the SOAP header but when such an assertion is not present the use of SOAP 
is optional and, irrespective of the use of SOAP, the context may be 
placed anywhere in the message.

Proposed resolution:

To resolve this I propose that a precise statement is made about the 
required location of a CoordinationContext within a message in section 2 
of each specification. Lines 145-146 in the AT spec would be modified to 
read:

"The Atomic Transaction coordination context flows in application messages 
involved with the transaction and MUST be represented in 
CoordinationContext format as described in WS-Coordination [WSCOOR]. For 
application messages that use a SOAP binding the CoordinationContext MUST 
flow in the SOAP header of the message."

Lines 179-180 in the BA spec would be modified to read:

"The Business Activity coordination context flows in application messages 
involved with the transaction and MUST be represented in 
CoordinationContext format as described in WS-Coordination [WSCOOR]. For 
application messages that use a SOAP binding the CoordinationContext MUST 
flow in the SOAP header of the message."

In addition to the above changes the description of the three policy 
assertions should also be amended. I believe there are two alternatives 
here:

a) Modify the assertions to state the requirements more clearly:

AT lines 279-280 - final sentence of the description:

The transaction MUST be represented in CoordinationContext format, as 
defined in WS-Coordination [WSCOOR]. For application messages that use a 
SOAP binding the CoordinationContext MUST flow in the SOAP header of the 
message.
BA lines 386-387, and 399-400 - final sentence of each description:
The transaction MUST be represented in CoordinationContext format, as 
defined in WS-Coordination [WSCOOR]. For application messages that use a 
SOAP binding the CoordinationContext MUST flow in the SOAP header of the 
message.
b) Remove the final sentence from each of the three descriptions (AT 
279-280, BA 386-387 and 399-400) as this is now specified in section 2.