activity context

[Mark Little <mcl@arjuna.com>]

Something we haven't yet got round to discussing in much detail is the notion of (business activity) context (c.f. transaction context). This is the context information that flows from the initiator and between high-level participants (i.e., business objects). We can encode this information within the XML, for example. The actual format of the context is obviously important for interoperability. If you've had a chance to read my previous emails you'll see that it should be possible to support a range of different extended transaction models with a single infrastructure, and each of these may have a slightly different requirement on the context. So, is it possible to have a single context structure that can map to these models? I believe so. Using CORBA IDL as an example:

 

struct Context
{
    unsigned long actionType;
    long timeout;
    Coordinator theCoordinator;
    sequence <octet> actionId;
    any activity_specific_data;
};

 

where:

 

(i) actionType defines the type of model being used (so that the rest of the context may be interpreted appropriately)

 

(ii) timeout is the timeout period associated with the business activity, such that if it hasn't completed within this period it will automatically be completed with a "failed" semantic (whatever "failed" means will be application dependant).

 

(iii) theCoordinator is a reference to the coordinator (this may be the root coordinator or a subordinate coordinator, depending upon who sent the context).

 

(iv) actionId is a unique identifier for this business activity.

 

(v) activity_specific_data is arbitrary data that is encoded in the context and may be interpreted on a per invocation/per model basis.

 

Obviously there are other ways in which the context information may be specified and encoded. This is just an example. What do people think?

 

What I'm hoping to show from this is that the context doesn't have to be complex in order to be powerful.

 

Mark.

 

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Dr. Mark Little (mark@arjuna.com)
Transactions Architect, HP Arjuna Labs
Phone +44 191 2064538
Fax   +44 191 2064203