RE: [ebxml-bp] State Alignment and Web Services (session 2) Today!

["Tony Fletcher" <tony_fletcher@btopenworld.com>]

Dear Monica and other ebBPers,

I am sorry I was travelling on private business on Friday (had to pick my
daughter up from a course) otherwise I was hoping to join you as a once off.

It seems to me that in thinking about State Alignment you are liking the
input from someone with a good knowledge of up to date transaction
protocols.  I am a poor shadow of that at present but I could have tried.

Jacques (Durand) was close when he mentioned BTP in an email on this topic
sometime ago - I was going to pick up on that but was too far behind with
email to interject in a timely fashion.

In general to achieve state alignment, and mutual assurance that you have
achieved state alignment (or mutual knowledge of failure) you do need to use
a transaction like protocol (such as BTP or WS-BA) or use something with the
equivalent semantic and behaviour specification.  So of course you can
replicate a transaction protocol at the business application protocol layer,
but as it is a common function independent of businesses semantics to me it
makes better sense to use a common 'infrastructure' protocol for this
purpose.

Unless there have been significant changes that I am unaware of the BPSS BT
is fine in my opinion as a business protocol with the receipt and acceptance
acknowledgement signals (and exception signals) signalling the progress of
the business interaction.  However to quote David (Webber - or more likely
mis-quote as I read and enjoyed the mail then deleted it) it only provides
state alignment when the wind is calm and the waters smooth.  It does not
provide complete assurance.  To provide state alignment and assurance of
that alignment under system and communication failure conditions then you do
need something like BTP or its equivalent.

I hope to be able to read the notes of Fridays meeting but one further
thought that you may or may not have covered.  That is that there are two
'things' that need to be aligned.  One is the corresponding business
protocol state machines, which should be in allowed complimentary states at
all times, or mis alignment detected and rectified.  The other is the
business data or business objects (such as order, invoice, patient record
and so forth).  This needs to be left in an aligned state at both sides.
ebXML (and UN/CEFACT TMG  RIP) came close to tackling this aspect head on
with the work on Business Entities and Business Entity Types.  As far as I
know though this work floundered and is still in the 'floundered' state.  I
wonder if the ebBP group has any thoughts of taking up this effort in OASIS,
or can give reasons why it is not required.  (If this work was to be revived
then the relationship to the WS-Resource Framework work would need to be
worked out

Best Regards     Tony
A M Fletcher
Home: 35, Wimborne Avenue, IPSWICH  IP3  8QW
Tel: +44 (0) 1473 729537   Mobile: +44 (0) 7801 948219
 amfletcher@iee.org     (also tony.fletcher@talk21.com  &
tony_fletcher@btopenworld.com)
 


-----Original Message-----
From: Monica J. Martin [mailto:Monica.Martin@Sun.COM] 
Sent: 25 June 2004 16:04
To: ebXML BP
Subject: [ebxml-bp] State Alignment and Web Services (session 2) Today!


A reminder about the second session today:

>State Alignment and Web Services (session 2) has been added by Monica 
>Martin (monica.martin@sun.com).
>