Re: choreography protocol

Jean-Jacques Dubray wrote:

>I don't have much time to follow the latest developments of WSDL and MEP
>might have well solved that problem. In WSDL 1.1, an operation can only
>be a request with an optional response and any number of faults. So if
>you wanted to describe something like 
>request ->          / request processed signal <- 
>	              / response <- / 
>response processed signal ->
>
>you would need at least two operations. If would be really great if WSDL
>1.2 could support such protocol natively via MEPs for instance?
>  
>
WSDL 1.2 has in-out and request-response. The distinction is that for 
request-response the response would be sent on the same channel as the 
request. There is no such constraint for in-out. So if you are using the 
in-out operation with some layer that supports reliable messaging or 
coordination you would in fact have signals travelling back and forth.

We can boil the ocean and attempt to describe what these signals should 
look like, or we can just bank on the existence of other specifications 
that already address these out-of-bands messages (e.g. WS-TX, WS-RM 1 
and 2).

>You may not want to have the process engine really being involved in
>managing these signals. For instance if you implement a 2 signal
>protocol like BPSS (message structure valid, message processed), the
>message structure validation should be done by the service interface and
>not below by the process engine for instance. The same could be true for
>the "message processed" signal, you could have the application sending
>it to the service interface via a call back. That would offload the
>process engine. This is more questionable as you could say that the
>application should really not know anything about the outside world, or
>"message processed" could mean that 3 applications get to see the
>message, in which case the process engine is certainly much better
>position to compute and return that signal.
>  
>
What does it mean 'request processed' but 'I'll send you a response 
later on'?

If you look at this from an implementation perspective then there is a 
service layer that is responsible to send these out-of-band messages 
based on the policy associated with using a particular service. (For 
example, you may do one-way with no ack in some cases, and one-way with 
exactly-once semantics in other cases).

The process engine needs to understand what application messages it 
would be sending/receiving from the choreography. The service layer is 
configured by policies associated with the service definition 
(interface, protocol or endpoint). So it makes sense to use these 
mechanisms for the choreography definition itself as well.

arkin

>A choreography layer independent of the process engine is a better
>architecture. This simplifies the process definition at least by a
>factor of 2. The process definition should be really dealing with
>business messages (request / response) not signals. This layer acts as
>both an inbound/outbound gatekeeper to make sure that messages are
>exchanges as specified by the choreography definition. 
>
>In any case, the choreography should not assume that there is a BPEL
>process engine inside, it should work with any service including the
>ones with BPEL inside.
>
>I don't really think that we need a separate spec. As I said, I think I
>built the case for which a choreography protocol is almost mandatory for
>any choreography spec that we could up with, it should be part of the
>spec, if we decide it is in scope. This protocol layer should be common
>to all services. 
>
>Jean-Jacques 
> 
> 
>
>  
>
>>>-----Original Message-----
>>>From: Ugo Corda [mailto:UCorda@SeeBeyond.com]
>>>Sent: Freitag, 20. Juni 2003 13:15
>>>To: Jean-Jacques Dubray; public-ws-chor@w3.org
>>>Subject: RE: BPSS_f2f_june03.ppt
>>>
>>>JJ,
>>>
>>>Let me see if I understand your concept of choreography protocol by
>>>      
>>>
>asking
>  
>
>>>some concrete questions.
>>>
>>>I imagine you are proposing to define such a protocol at the abstract
>>>level (i.e. part of the choreography abstract language we have been
>>>talking about). So at the time we need to develop an executable
>>>      
>>>
>process we
>  
>
>>>would have to map that abstract protocol to the specific executable
>>>language/protocols we plan to use.
>>>
>>>In the case of executable BPEL, would the abstract choreography
>>>      
>>>
>protocol
>  
>
>>>map to specific BPEL messages (i.e. your choreography protocol would
>>>      
>>>
>have
>  
>
>>>corresponding parts in the  WSDL descriptions of related messages)? Or
>>>would it map to other BPEL features other than message contents?
>>>
>>>If it maps to message contents and the WSDL interfaces happen to be
>>>      
>>>
>bound
>  
>
>>>to SOAP, would that choreography protocol be mapped to a SOAP module
>>>      
>>>
>(i.e.
>  
>
>>>SOAP headers)? Do you envision a new spec that defines a SOAP-based
>>>choreography protocol?
>>>
>>>Thank you,
>>>Ugo
>>>
>>>      
>>>
>>>>-----Original Message-----
>>>>From: Jean-Jacques Dubray [mailto:jjd@eigner.com]
>>>>Sent: Friday, June 20, 2003 4:30 AM
>>>>To: Ugo Corda; 'Jean-Jacques Dubray'; public-ws-chor@w3.org
>>>>Subject: RE: BPSS_f2f_june03.ppt
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>Ugo:
>>>>
>>>>Basically a choreography protocol is needed to ensure that
>>>>each peer in
>>>>the choreography has the same view of the state in which the
>>>>choreography instance is. Imagine a situation, where you send me a
>>>>        
>>>>
>PO
>  
>
>>>>and I am not supposed to respond until the goods are shipped
>>>>and I will
>>>>respond by sending you an invoice. So you send me a PO and
>>>>the RM tells
>>>>you "I got it" (just like a fax). The next thing that should
>>>>happen then
>>>>is you receive the goods and later on an invoice. If there was a
>>>>        
>>>>
>human
>  
>
>>>>behind a fax machine, and the order was garbled he could call
>>>>and figure
>>>>out the right information. In this case, the sender things the
>>>>choreography is going ok. The responder on the contrary
>>>>thinks that the
>>>>collaboration is terminated on an error. This is why you need a
>>>>protocol: to tell you that no exception occurred, each party has the
>>>>same view of the state of the choreography.
>>>>
>>>>If you take a "highly-connected" system that has several hundred /
>>>>thousands participants (not all participating in the same
>>>>        
>>>>
>choreography
>  
>
>>>>instance but rather having 2 by 2 conversations). You cannot
>>>>expect that
>>>>every message that will be exchanged in this setting would be of
>>>>        
>>>>
>high
>  
>
>>>>quality (the structure may be old or wrong, the content may be
>>>>incoherent making the processing of the message impossible, i.e. a
>>>>response cannot be created because the message could not get into
>>>>        
>>>>
>the
>  
>
>>>>system that was supposed to create the response).
>>>>
>>>>At this point, you can say I don't need/want a protocol. That
>>>>means that
>>>>when a choreography is designed, the designers must account for
>>>>        
>>>>
>these
>  
>
>>>>possible (yet common) errors. They will create specific
>>>>messages to say
>>>>"could not process your orders, it contains errors", and make these
>>>>messages part of the choreography.
>>>>
>>>>On the other hand if you had a protocol, you would have a standard
>>>>        
>>>>
>set
>  
>
>>>>of exceptions (common to all message exchanges) and
>>>>materialized with a
>>>>set of standard messages. You could then express the
>>>>choreography paths
>>>>based on these error conditions (if success ... if failure ... if
>>>>timeout ... if structure invalid ... if content invalid ...) with an
>>>>implicit message exchange. The simplest set of exception for me are:
>>>>message did not get there on time, message could not be processed by
>>>>system/service of record.
>>>>
>>>>Again, all this has nothing to do with RM. The problem here
>>>>is not that
>>>>your message did not get to the recipient, it is rather that the
>>>>recipient got a message that he could not process, hence
>>>>        
>>>>
>interrupting
>  
>
>>>>the choreography instance. A protocol would help you cover
>>>>80/90% of the
>>>>common exceptions. Others can be dealt with at the design level.
>>>>
>>>>Cheers,
>>>>
>>>>Jean-Jacques Dubray____________________
>>>>Chief Architect
>>>>Eigner  Precision Lifecycle Management
>>>>200 Fifth Avenue
>>>>Waltham, MA 02451
>>>>781-472-6317
>>>>jjd@eigner.com
>>>>www.eigner.com
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>        
>>>>
>>>>>>-----Original Message-----
>>>>>>From: Ugo Corda [mailto:UCorda@SeeBeyond.com]
>>>>>>Sent: Donnerstag, 19. Juni 2003 22:14
>>>>>>To: Jean-Jacques Dubray; public-ws-chor@w3.org
>>>>>>Subject: RE: BPSS_f2f_june03.ppt
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Jean-Jacques,
>>>>>>
>>>>>>I did not have a chance to listen to your presentation, so you
>>>>>>            
>>>>>>
>might
>  
>
>>>>have
>>>>        
>>>>
>>>>>>already explained this. In your slides you talk about a
>>>>>>            
>>>>>>
>>>>"choreography
>>>>        
>>>>
>>>>>>protocol", and I am not sure whether it is just regular
>>>>>>            
>>>>>>
>>>>messages plus
>>>>an
>>>>        
>>>>
>>>>>>instance ID (as you mentioned in a previous message to the
>>>>>>            
>>>>>>
>>>>list) or it
>>>>is
>>>>        
>>>>
>>>>>>more than that.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Thank you,
>>>>>>Ugo
>>>>>>
>>>>>>            
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>-----Original Message-----
>>>>>>>From: Martin Chapman [mailto:martin.chapman@oracle.com]
>>>>>>>Sent: Thursday, June 19, 2003 12:18 PM
>>>>>>>To: public-ws-chor@w3.org
>>>>>>>Subject: FW: BPSS_f2f_june03.ppt
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>-----Original Message-----
>>>>>>>From: Jean-Jacques Dubray [mailto:jjd@eigner.com]
>>>>>>>Sent: Thursday, June 19, 2003 10:23 AM
>>>>>>>To: 'Martin Chapman'; 'Steve Ross-Talbot';
>>>>>>>              
>>>>>>>
>>>>Daniel_Austin@grainger.com
>>>>        
>>>>
>>>>>>>Subject: BPSS_f2f_june03.ppt
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>Martin et al:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>This is my presentation for this afternoon. Please let me
>>>>>>>know what time
>>>>>>>and which number to call.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>Best regards,
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>JJ-
>>>>>>>781-472-6317
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>              
>>>>>>>
>>>>        
>>>>


-- 
"Those who can, do; those who can't, make screenshots"

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Assaf Arkin                                          arkin@intalio.com
Intalio Inc.                                           www.intalio.com
The Business Process Management Company                 (650) 577 4700


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Received on Friday, 20 June 2003 16:43:23 UTC