RE: Web Service Definition [Was "Some Thoughts ..."]

It seems that people are agreeing that web services are the atomic
components from which orchestrations are made -- but that a web service
might under the covers involve the aggregation of other services as long as
it is providing a single "answer" to a single "question",  I suppose that
answer might come next Thursday or be composed of several decoupled
transmissions of information (e.g. confirmation of receipt now, detailed
response next Thursday).

That's fine, but it seems to me that the issues of orchestrations or work
flows should rear it's head somewhere in this.  The reason I say this is
that I think that there are probably desirable requirements for web services
that one may only find by considering them in the context of such processes.
For example -- and I don't claim that this is a very good one, but I am just
trying to suggest a style -- if you are talking about a purchase process
that has things like purchase orders and invoices going back and forth, each
component web service is going to have various familiar security
requirements like identification and authorization.  "Am I really who I say
I am and am I authorized to purchase something?"  But in the context of a
purchase process I think that there is probably also a requirement that a
message be unassailably tied to a particular transaction, so that one cannot
somehow pay for a Yugo and get shipped a Cadillac.

Received on Thursday, 21 February 2002 16:53:09 UTC