Re: [wsrf] ISSUE : setResourceProperties atomicity

[Ian Robinson <ian_robinson@uk.ibm.com>]

For WSRF, this is a non-issue. Transaction policy/metadata belongs to
transaction specifications not WS-RF specifications.

WSRF-RP contains a clear statement of what is in-scope and out-of-scope wrt
transactional QoS in section 7: "ACID Properties of Operations on
WS-Resources ".

The WS-RF TC charter notes that WS-RF will be "composable with other
available Web services specifications enabling applications to access state
with the qualities of service - for example security, transactions and
reliability - provided for in those specifications" and then very explicity
declares in the "Out of Scope" section:

"The following topics are outside the scope of this TC:
Quality of service related policy enforcement on resource property access.
The TC will not address security or transactions implications in the
specifications it delivers. "

Regards,
Ian Robinson
STSM, WebSphere Messaging and Transactions Architect
IBM Hursley Lab, UK
ian_robinson@uk.ibm.com


                                                                           
             "Glen Daniels"                                                
             <gdaniels@sonicso                                             
             ftware.com>                                                To 
                                       <wsrf@lists.oasis-open.org>         
             29/10/2004 01:23                                           cc 
                                                                           
                                                                   Subject 
                                       [wsrf] ISSUE :                      
                                       setResourceProperties atomicity     
                                                                           
                                                                           
                                                                           
                                                                           
                                                                           
                                                                           





I'm sitting here at the WS-Notification meeting, and the following topic
has just come up.

The atomicity of setResourceProperties() in WSRP is currently undefined
(I can't get to the current spec right now (no net) to point at a
particular section, sorry).  An implementation is free to either do them
all at once, guaranteeing atomicity, or to do them one at a time, so
that some of them might have worked and others did not at the end of the
invocation.  In other words, it's a QoS issue as to whether a given
implementation decides to do it one way or the other.

This seems like a fine thing, except that apparently there is not yet a
plan for either a) a metadata/policy assertion which indicates a given
resource will do setResourceProperties in an atomic (or not) way, or b)
a way to indicate in a given setResourceProperties() invocation that the
requester requires atomicity.  I would like to raise an issue that both
of these things should be specified in WSRP.

In particular, I'm suggesting that the group:

1) Define a normative way to indicate in metadata that a resource will
do atomic setResourceProperties() invocations (this is basically a
boolean element with a well known QName)

2) Define a boolean "atomic" flag/attribue on the
setResourceProperties() operation, the semantics of which indicate that
a successful result means ALL sets were done, and a failed result means
NO sets were done.

IMHO, without this stuff, the usefulness of a single set operation for
multiple resource properties is severely restricted.

--Glen