RE: [ebxml-bp] Yunker 3/7/2005: NOF Handoffs

["Yunker, John" <yunker@amazon.com>]

The original vision (early ebXML) was that "by agreement of trading partners" the certificate-based digest used by ebMS message protocol could be captured and stored as the non-repudiation digest (making the ebMS receipt function as a business protocol receipt).  By default the receipt-ack (and its associated on-repudiation attributes) are separate from the reliable messaging layer.

A more robust specification of this dependency has been "TBD".

-----Original Message-----
From: steve capell [mailto:steve.capell@redwahoo.com] 
Sent: Monday, March 07, 2005 2:38 PM
To: 'Monica J. Martin'; Yunker, John
Cc: 'ebXML BP'
Subject: RE: [ebxml-bp] Yunker 3/7/2005: NOF Handoffs


Certainly the back end system (or BPM running the "private process") must handle a NOF.  It must also return an indication to the BSI when an inbound business document has been successfully (or unsuccessfully) created in the business system so that the BSI can generate an "Acceptance" or NOF.

Whether the specific mechanism to do that needs to be defined in the BPSS standard is a separate issue.  At present BPSS specifies externally observable behaviour of the BSI from the perspective of the complementary role.  I think that is the right place to put priorities.  Would be nice to specify some kind of standard API between a BSI layer and BPM layer from the internal perspective but I think that is a secondary issue - and only matters when different vendors are involved at the interface between BSI and BPM.

Back to the externally observable behaviour, one thing that still is not clear AND has a direct impact on interoperability is the issue of what constitutes a receipt acknowledgement when a reliable messaging protocol is used.  I have heard some say that the BPSS receipt ack is a totally separate thing to the ebMS reliable messaging ack and others say that the "can" be the same thing.  From a business interpretation perspective I can see how they "could" be the same thing.  However from a machne-machine interoperability perspective they are definitely not the same thing.  If the BPSS / CPA specifies that reliable messaging is required (in channel
properties) and that a receipt ack is required (through a time to acknowledge receipt transaction characteristic) AND if one side of the collaboration assumes that the ebML RM ack can be interpreted as the same thing as the BPSS receipt ack whilst the other side is explicitly waiting for a BPSS receipt ack then you will have a problem.

Can we clarify issues like that first?

In my opinion, reliable messaging at the protocol layer should be a totally separate thing to business signals at the BSI choreography layer.  That way, whether I am using ebMS or WS-RM, or just plain SOAP + WS-Addressing + WS-Security then the partner BSI is still expecting a BPSS business signal and is not trying to guess which protocol level signal corresponds to the business signal..

Cheers,

Steve Capell
Red Wahoo
www.redwahoo.com 
p: + 61 2 9438 3700
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-----Original Message-----
From: Monica J. Martin [mailto:Monica.Martin@Sun.COM] 
Sent: Tuesday, 8 March 2005 6:01 AM
To: Yunker, John
Cc: ebXML BP
Subject: [ebxml-bp] Yunker 3/7/2005: NOF Handoffs

Question raised by Sacha Schlegel: Do we need to specify any handoff of 
NOF to backend systems/middleware by the BSI? Thanks.