[ebxml-cppa] Intermediaries

["Damodaran, Suresh" <Suresh_Damodaran@stercomm.com>]

Dale et al,

 

There was some discussion on the definition of "intermediary" on the CPPA mailing list some time in the past.

If somebody could post a summary of the consensus, it would help me much.

 

I have the following ideas on intermediary FWIW - and hopefully the TC consensus is not wildly different!

I am trying to present this in the form of a taxonomy, but pardon me if it doesn't exactly look formal.

First I define a "technical intermediary," and then contrast with "business intermediary"

 

Technical Intermediary:

 

1. Intermediary is not at the transport (==OSI application protocol layer - e.g. http, smtp, ftp) layer,

and it is at the message layer or service layer. In particular,  an intermediary MUST parse the ebXML (SOAP) message.

However, an intermediary will not change the messageId.

 

2. Intermediaries could exhibit different behaviors w.r.t. the message

    - relay/proxy intermediary - relays the received message with no changes to the received message.

    e.g, caching intermediaries

    - security intermediaries (that change the security attributes of the message)

    e.g, signer, encryptor/decryptor, etc.

    - processing intermediaries (that process the message and change the message - but will not change the messageId)

 

3. Intermediaries can also be classified based on whether they have a CPP or not.

 

Thus,  I have defined above two axes of definition for intermediaries based on (a) effect on a message (b) existence of profile

Perhaps there are more axes?

 

Business Intermediary:

 

Now, if we think about business intermediaries, how do they differ from above?

Couple of examples:

    - Shipping agent: This is a business intermediary that has a CPP, but it is not a technical intermediary. Because

    shipping agent will change the messageId, it is not a technical intermediary.

    - Notary - a notary may have a CPP, but could also be a technical intermediary, because a notary may simply

    add its signature on a message that it receives.

 

Thanks for your comments in advance.

 

Sincerely,

-Suresh
Sterling Commerce