Keeping results of asychronous operations.

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

A provider will eventually want to forget about a completed asynchronous 
operation. I can think of two approaches.  Neither approach excludes the 
other.
1) A provider can save the results of asynchronous operations for a 
certain amount of time.
2) A provider can send a final, unsolicited response to the requestor.

I prefer the first approach.  I like the simplicity and consistency of a 
response always being a synchronous reply to a request.  (However, if 
someone wants to make a case for the second approach, I'll listen.  
Neither approach excludes the other.)

Assuming the first approach, we still have options to consider. 
1a) A provider should keep results for each completed asynchronous 
operation for a certain amount of time.
1b) A provider should keep results for each completed asynchronous 
operation for a certain amount of time OR until a requestor uses the 
status operation to obtain the final results of the operation, whichever 
comes first.

gpc