Batch Capability.

[Gary P Cole <Gary.P.Cole@Sun.COM>]

Should 'batch' be a required operation? 

Right now 'batch' is part of the core (which de facto makes it 
required), but it doesn't really have to be part of the core.  It's not 
a *basic* operation (like 'add', 'modify', 'delete', or 'lookup') and 
it's not a *bootstrap* operation (like 'listTargets').  It's an 
operation that wraps multiple (batchable) requests in a single request.

I think we should move the 'batch' operation to a Batch Capability (for 
the same reasons that we moved 'search' to the Search Capability).  The 
'batch' operation imposes a fair amount of complexity on the provider, 
and should be optional. 
1) The 'batch' operation requires that the provider order nested results 
within its response (to correspond with the order of the requests within 
the original request).
2) The batch operation also also allows the requestor to specify 
"processingType" as either "sequential" or "parallel".

gpc

ps. In addition to its specified features, the 'batch' operation is the 
"poster child" for asynchronous execution.  We could remove a fair 
amount of complexity from the core protocol if the basic operations were 
all synchronous--and we could do it without reducing function.  As long 
as the provider supports asynchronous execution of batch requests, a 
requestor who wants to execute an operation asynchronously can simply 
wrap the original request in a batch request.