Re: NEW ISSUE :Clarify usage of assertions with no behavioral req uirements on the requester

Hi all

Thanks for a lot of feedback.

> Why would that not work, given the client still needs to
> understand what <oasis:highlyAvailable/> means to make any
> sense of it?

+1.

The main question is : how requesters which don't know what <oasis:highlyAvailable/> is can proceed talking to an ha-service. HA is
an add-on feature/capability, if a requesters wants to take the full advantage of this add-on, then a requester is clearly has to
understand what it means. Likewise, it's clear that requesters that don't understand what it means are not affected at all during
the comminication with the HA service.
Perhaps <oasis:highlyAvailable/> is not the best example. <oasis:free/>, <oasis:infoConfidential/>, <oasis:Replicatable/>, etc would
be similar.

I'd suggest working with this example. Policy-aware requester has a requirement to work with secure services. During the
intersection stage it will check that a provider has an alternative meeting its security requirements. As it happens, a secure
service is also advertizing it's <oasis:replicatable/>. <oasis:replicatable/> provider's capability won't affect the requester
during the communication. Unfortunately, this individual requester does not know yet what <oasis:replicatable/> is.
The question : how a provider should advertize <oasis:replicatable/> such that this requester can consume the service.

Thanks, Sergey

Hi Prasad, all:

> If the assertion (capability) MUST be understood by the
> clients it must not be marked "optional", otherwise it is
> marked with "optional=true".
>
> Why would that not work, given the client still needs to
> understand what <oasis:highlyAvailable/> means to make any
> sense of it?

+1.  I would actually propose that we should consider renaming
wsp:optional to wsp:ignorable, as it seems to me that this might help to
clarify the breadth of usage scenarios that this attribute enables.

Just to be clear - non-ignorable (i.e. "MustUnderstand") policy
assertions require that they be understood and agreed with in order to
successfully use the policy alternative.  This does not necessarily mean
any particular observable effect occurs as a result of this agreement.
(Once again, however, I note that it would be nice to have a standard
mechanism for indicating the policy alternative selected, to avoid each
assertion author needing to craft individual SOAP headers)  Ignorable
assertions are just that - they may be freely ignored as if they weren't
present, or freely acted upon if they are understood and agreed with.

--Glen

> Regards,
>
> Prasad
>
>
>
> ________________________________
>
> From: public-ws-policy-request@w3.org
> [mailto:public-ws-policy-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of Sergey Beryozkin
> Sent: Tuesday, October 31, 2006 9:32 AM
> To: Sergey Beryozkin; public-ws-policy@w3.org
> Subject: Re: NEW ISSUE :Clarify usage of assertions with no
> behavioral requirements on the requester
>
>
>
> Hi
>
>
>
> While the group is looking at what to do with wsp:local
> attribute, I'd also appreciate some feedback on what a
> guideline/resoultion should be on advertizing capabilities like
>
> <oasis:highlyAvailable/>
>
>
>
> Thanks, Sergey
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
>
> From: Sergey Beryozkin <mailto:sergey.beryozkin@iona.com>
>
> To: public-ws-policy@w3.org
>
> Sent: Thursday, October 26, 2006 10:29 AM
>
> Subject: Re: NEW ISSUE :Clarify usage of assertions
> with no behavioral requirements on the requester
>
>
>
> Hello,
>
>
>
> As part of the action assigned to me at the yesterday's
> concall, I'd like to offer to your attention 4 alternative
> proposals on how to resolve this issue which I believe have
> been mentioned before. I hope the subsequent discussions will
> point to a best/preferred/least controversial/simpliest/easy
> to understand solution.
>
>
>
> I'd like to clarify that the purpose of resolving this
> issue is to have a guideline to policy authors which wish to
> advertize some of provider's capabilities. For ex,
> custom:free, custom:infoConfidential, custom:highlyAvailable,
> custom:replicatable which requesters can ignore or do something about.
>
> I'll add my own comments (S.B) to each of the proposal.
> However, please do not consider them as something which
> represents the position of Iona at this stage.
>
>
>
>
>
> Proposal1.
>
> Drastically simplify the meaning of wsp:optional.
> Explain that wsp:optional marks an assertion which can be
> ignored by a requester. In other words wsp:optional is
> identical in meaning to wsp:ignorable. Clearly state that
> wsp:optional assertions are by no means optional to a provider.
>
> Explain that wsp:optional is a shortcut which
> simplifies creating different policy alternatives/vocabularies.
>
> Ex : <custom:infoConfidential wsp:optional="true"/>
> means a requester can ignore it.
>
>
>
>
>
> <S.B>  IMHO this is the simpliest solution which works.
> IMHO the current treatment of wsp:optional is too
> complicated. For ex, I think stating that if there's
> something a provider always does should not be marked as
> optional, otherwise it has to be optional will only confuse
> the users. IMHO it's wrong to say a provider optionally does
> MTOM, it always does it, one requester can choose an
> alternative with no MTOM but it does not mean the provider
> does not do it with the other requester. In other words an
> alternative is a piece of vocabulary. If MTOM is not in the
> selected alternative or not it does not mean that a provider
> has lost its capability to do MTOM. Viewing wsp:optional as a
> simple marker to indicate ignorable assertions is a very
> simple and working solution IMHO.
>
> <S.B> additional advantage is that it cleanly alligns
> with a proposed wsp:local attribute in that a user will be
> guided to mark server-specific stuff as being wsp:local.
> Imagine a GUI asking a question :
>
> * "Is this assertion must be understood by a
> requester", YES-normal assertion.
>
> * "Is this assertion may be ignored by a requester",
> YES-multiple vocabularies are created, addional question :
> "Can this ignorable assertion be of any interest to a
> requester ?" NO - mark it as wsp:local.
>
> Nothing will prevent a user by exposing
> <myLocalServerOnlyAssertion/> by marking it as wsp:optional.
> This approach will proactively teach a user not to do it and
> only expose assertions which can be of interest to a requester.
>
>
>
> Proposal 2. Similar to proposal1. Drop wsp:optional
> altogether and find out how simple things have become. The
> reason it works is that if we forget about wsp:optional for a
> second, we can easily see that if one assertion is contained
> in one alternative and not in the other one then it's an
> optional/ignorable assertion. Another reason it works is that
> we can imagine policy authors using GUI tools which guide
> them. Imagine questions like : "Is this assertion must be
> understood by a requester" ? "Is this assertion may be
> ignored by a requester" ? Yes to the last question will
> result in a tool creating two alternative vocabularies.
>
>
>
> <S.B> the same comments as above
>
> <S.B> disadvantage is that more work will be requiored
> in a manual edit mode.
>
>
>
> Proposal 3. Introduce a new attribute wsp:provider-only
> and leave wsp:optional the way it is now.
>
>
>
> Ex :
>
>
>
> <Policy>
>
> <m:MTOM wsp:optional="true"/>
>
> <sp:security/>
>
> <!-- of potential interest to requesters -->
>
> <m:highlyAvailable wsp:provider-only="true"/>
>
> <!-- server-specific stuff, of no interst to requesters-->
>
> <m:myCustomServerLogging wsp:provider-only="true"/>
>
> </Policy>
>
>
>
> <S.B.> This works only if wsp:provider-only="true" are
> not stripped but this means wsp:provider-only="true" pointing
> to server-specific stuff only won't be stripped and be
> consistently leaked (and confuse a user at a design-time). If
> it's stripped then we'll lose <m:highlyAvailable/> which is
> of interest to knowledgeable requesters. IMHO it's a can of worms.
>
>
>
> Proposal 4. Noop. Think of workarounds : multiple
> endpoints, different Policies, WSDLs, etc...
>
>
>
>
>
> Enjoy, Sergey.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

Received on Wednesday, 1 November 2006 10:44:22 UTC