[ebxml-cppa] vanilla SOAP binding

[Martin W Sachs <mwsachs@us.ibm.com>]

We have discussed providing a "vanilla" SOAP binding in the CPA for use in negotiation CPAs. This helps to eliminate the need for negotiating the negotiation CPA before negotiating the CPA that is under construction.

At first sight, providing a vanilla SOAP binding is an addition to the CPPA specification. That probably has to be a post-V2 item since adding that binding is a change that is probably more extensive than we want to make while the specification is under OASIS review and ballot. There are other possibilities:

1. Add an extensibility element to the DocExchange element, which would permit introducing the SOAP binding an an extension. We could probably insert the extensibility element while doing the final edits after the public review period.

2. Perhaps we can create a "negotiation profile" that specifies the minimal set of document-exchange that is in the negotiation CPA and that everone doing negotiation is expected to be able to support. All child elements of DocExchange, ebXMLSenderBinding, and ebXMLReceiverBinding have cardinalties that include zero, which permits eliminating most ebXML messaging function in the negotiation CPA without changing the CPPA specification. Similarly, we could look at the rest of the CPA definition to see what we can specify as the minimal set of function for the negotiation CPA.

There is one slight problem with (2): While the schema permits a CPA to contain no child elements under ebXMLSenderBinding and ebXMLReceiverBinding, I don't believe that we specify how messaging works if none of those child elements are present. A natural definition is that if none of them are present, messages are exchanged with only the basic Messaging Service function, which has to be pretty close to vanilla SOAP. Could we discuss this with the MSG team to see if it makes sense to add such a statement to the CPPA speciication?

Regards,
Marty



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Martin W. Sachs
IBM T. J. Watson Research Center
P. O. B. 704
Yorktown Hts, NY 10598
914-784-7287; IBM tie line 863-7287
Notes address: Martin W Sachs/Watson/IBM
Internet address: mwsachs @ us.ibm.com
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