Request for an agenda item on Tuesday, 20 Dec 2006 to discuss the potential liaison with FWSI TC

["Ramasamy S/O Valliappan" <rama@SIMTech.a-star.edu.sg>]

Hi All
 
Introduction
 
The FWSI TC has two subcommittees, namely, Functional Elements SC & Implementation Methodology SC. The Functional Elements SC has come out with specification for some functional elements like Notification Engine, Log Utility, Configurable Search, Secure SOAP, EventHandler, Service Management, etc. that any SOA-based application could make reference and use of. 
 
We would like to further explore the possibilities of liaison with eb-SOA TC in terms of making use of the following potential functional elements (which have the two main characterestics - Multi-purpose, Re-usable, Reliable, Always-On and Distributed, Specialized Components as a Framework) in their ebXML Message Service v3.0:
 
1. Data Integrator
The Data Integrator Functional element is expected to be used for enabling easy and simple mechanisms to access disparate data sources by:
 • Providing unified data view of enterprise across various data sources,
 • Enabling the partitioned view of data for different groups/departments based on defined logical views, and
 • Performing data processing or transformation before presenting the defined logical data view(s).
 
2. Error Management
Error management is an important aspect in any software application development.  In particular, it is important to know the cause of error in the Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) environment as an application can consume any service provided from any domain space spans across the Internet space.  When an error occurs, it can be from within the same application domain or from different domain space.  Hence, it is important to know the system state when the error occurred in the SOA environment.  For example, when an error occurred, what services were used; which services’ interfaces were used; the passed in parameters and its associated values used for the interfaces, the time when the error occurred, API or SOAP invocation, etc are the important information for managing the application in the SOA environment. 
 
3. Event Handler
Information is in abundance in a service-oriented environment. However, not all information is applicable to a particular enterprise and there lies the need to control information flow in an organization. In a Web Service-enabled implementation, the Event Handler Functional Element can help to fulfill this need by:
 • Managing the information flow through a subscription based mechanism,
 • Streamlining information into meaningful categories so as to improve relevancy to a potential consumer of the information, and
 • Refining information flow via a filtering mechanism 
 
4. Key Management
The Key Management Functional Element is expected to be related Web Services security.  To enable Web Services security, cryptographic keys are used for digital signatures and encryption.  XKMS defines a Web services interface to a public key infrastructure.  With development of XKMS standard, more and more PKI providers adopt XKMS to remove its complexity without sacrificing its benefits.  Application developers will only ever need to worry about implementing XKMS clients for key management.  As such it will cover aspects that include.
 
5. Log Utility
In a Web Service-enabled implementation, the Log Utility Functional Element can help to organise the diagnostic output that may be generated by the implementation. In order to achieve that, the following capabilities should be provided. They include:
 • Logging information into different data sources,
 • Allowing user defined log format to be used,
 • Capability for storing log information, and
 • Providing the capability to analyse the information log.
 
6. Notification 
In a Web Service-enabled implementation, timely information is crucial for the management of resources that it encompasses. Other uses of this Functional Element include broadcasting of information to other services and this could span across both the wired and wireless medium. In order to fulfill these needs, this Functional Element will cover the following aspects which include:
 • Providing the capability to configure and link with the various gateways so as to enable messages dissemination, and
 • Providing the capability to send instantaneous or scheduled messages to the intended audiences.
 
7. Secure SOAP
In a Web Services implementation, it is envisage that confidential information is being exchanged all the time. Against this backdrop, it is imperative that an application in such an environment is equipped with the capability to guard sensitive information from prying eyes. Secure SOAP Management fulfills this need by covering the following areas. 
 • The facility of digitally signing SOAP message,
 • The facility of encrypting SOAP message, and
 • The capability to generate the original SOAP message after signing or encrypting the message.
 
8. Service Management
The ability to monitor Web Services invocation is crucial towards the adoption of this technology from the security and performance standpoints.  A security framework should incorporate an authentication and authorisation mechanism together with an audit trail.  These twin considerations will serve to discourage resource misuse and in addition, will help to promote the "pay-as-you-use" concept. Service throughput on the server end is another important parameter that must be monitored.  Administrators of services, which are sluggish, should be notified immediately via any electronic means.
 
9. Service Registry
In a Web Service-enabled implementation, there exist the needs to maintain a central repository of all the services that are available. This facilitates service lookups as well as management of Web Services within the application that contains the Functional Element. In order to achieve these expectations, the Functional Element will cover the following aspects.
 • Simplify management of information in a XML registry server like UDDI and ebXML, and
 • Simplify information publish and query from a XML registry server like UDDI and ebXML.
 
10. Transformer
Different applications support different format of files or message.  Sometimes same information needs to be represented in different format in different use cases.  This element tries to provide a framework to facilitate transformation between files or messages.
 
For further information about Functional Elements, please refer to the following document (fwsi-fe-2.0-guidelines-spec-wd-01.pdf) at URL:
 
http://www.oasis-open.org/apps/org/workgroup/fwsi-fesc/download.php/15095/fwsi-fe-2.0-guidelines-spec-wd-01.pdf
 
From
V. RAM
FWSI - FESC Member,
SIMTech.