FAQ draft

[Jeffrey Ricker <jricker@izarinc.com>]

OASIS is sending a press release out this week announcing the ASAP
Technical Committee. One of the things we need to get done is a FAQ. I
have taken an initial stab. Please post additions, corrections, etc to
the list as soon as possible.



What does ASAP stand for?

Asynchronous Service Access Protocol 


What does asynchronous mean?

ASAP uses the term asynchronous to mean that the requests and responses
are not synchronized. In a synchronous exchange, the client asks A and
the server answers A, client asks B and the server answers B, and so
forth. In an asynchronous exchange, the client can ask A, B then C, and
the server can answer B, C then A. For an asynchronous exchange to work,
the client must have some means for correlating the responses to the
requests. The need for asynchronous arises when the server takes along
time to create its responses. 


Why do we need asynchronous services?

Most everything on the Internet is currently based on instant
gratification. A client requests a resource; if the server does not
respond with the resource within 60 seconds, then the request fails. We
the expansion of the Internet to electronic commerce and most notably
webservices, there have arisen classes of resources that cannot be
created within 60 seconds. Some of these resources take several minutes
or even days to create. What we need is an ability for a webservice to
respond to client, "The resource you requested is not ready yet. Where
do you want me to send it when its done?"


What types of webservices are asynchronous?

Any service that takes more than 60 seconds to respond is a likely
asynchronous webservice. Business processes are often asynchronous,
especially if they require human intervention or approval. Large data
mining queries will often be asynchronous. Remote mobile devices that
move in and out of coverage areas are also well suited for asynchronous
webservices. Chained webservices, that is webservices that rely on other
webservices, can also be asynchronous because, although each service in
the chain may respond by itself in less than 60 seconds, the sum of
their response times in sequence exceeds 60 seconds.


What is the objective of ASAP?

The objective of ASAP is to provide the minimum functionality necessary
to handle an asynchronous exchange in Simple Object Access Protocol
(SOAP). 


How does ASAP relate to [insert XYZ standards effort here]?

ASAP is designed to be incorporated into standards efforts protocols
just as SOAP is. The objective of ASAP is to provide the minimum
functionality necessary to handle an asynchronous exchange in SOAP that
other standards efforts can employ in achieving their particular
business requirements. The ASAP Technical Committee is working with
various other standards efforts. If you know a standards effort that has
an asynchronous requirement, then please feel free to contact the ASAP
Technical Committee to discuss those requirements.


If asynchronous services are so common, why form a separate technical
committee for ASAP? 

Many standards efforts face an asynchronous challenge or have an
asynchronous requirement. Without ASAP, each of these standards efforts
would be forced to create their own means of handling an asynchronous
exchange in SOAP. There would arise a multitude of systems having a
multitude of ways of accomplishing essentially the same task. Is that
not what we adopted XML and SOAP to avoid? The objective of ASAP is to
provide the minimum functionality necessary to handle an asynchronous
exchange in SOAP that other standards efforts can employ in achieving
their particular business requirements.


Where did ASAP come from?

The roots of the current effort began in 1997 with the Internet
Engineering Task Force (IETF) effort named Simple Workflow Access
Protocol (SWAP) lead by Netscape, Oracle and others. More than 20
individuals have contributed to the creation of ASAP so far. The current
technical committee includes individuals from Amberpoint, British
Telecom, Cisco, Computer Associates, Fujitsu, iWay, Lockheed Martin,
Research In Motion and the University of Hong Kong.