[Bug 9671] New: Support for remote authoring of Metadata: PutMetadata

http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=9671

           Summary: Support for remote authoring of Metadata: PutMetadata
           Product: WS-Resource Access
           Version: PR
          Platform: PC
        OS/Version: Windows XP
            Status: NEW
          Severity: normal
          Priority: P2
         Component: MetadataExchange
        AssignedTo: public-ws-resource-access-notifications@w3.org
        ReportedBy: katy_warr@uk.ibm.com
         QAContact: public-ws-resource-access-notifications@w3.org


Issue http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=6411 was raised a few
months ago in order to provide symmetry between the WS-Mex and WS-T specs and
was closed.

We now have new evidence in terms of specific requirements that illustrate the
importance of this symmetry.  In particular, metadata authoring for a
particular endpoint is often performed using specific tooling that may be
remote from the actual runtime. The WS-MetadataExchange spec does not allow for
the pushing (update) of metadata from the metadata authoring tooling to the
location at which the metadata is stored.  

With the specs as they are currently, an endpoint's metadata could be updated
by pulling a reference to the individual metadata resource endpoint and then
performing a WS-T Put on the metadata resource endpoint.  There are a number of
problems with this approach:
1) An endpoint would need to expose itself as a Metadata endpoint AND each of
its metadata parts as Metadata Resources (each supporting WS-Transfer Put)
2) It does not allow for updates to multiple pieces of related metadata for an
endpoint in a single step.  This may be problematic as the metadata updates
might be to different metadata types, but dependent on each other.
3) It requires an extra step (or steps) - one to get the metadata endpoint to
which the WST Put will be targeted and one (or more) to perform the actual WST
Put(s).  This complicates the solution and affects performance.

This issue is easy to fix (as we are essentially repeating operations based
elsewhere) and would enable the Metadata scenarios to be fully covered by the
WS-Mex spec, rather than the specs only provide a partial solution to metadata
exchange as they do currently.

I appreciate that this is a late change but it is a very important scenario.  I
have generated a complete proposal, where possible utilising existing aspects
from other specs that we are confident with.

Proposal
--------
- Add PutMetadata and DeleteMetadata operations to WS-Mex spec (sections 6.3
and 6.4). Note that Metadata creation can be performed by the PutMetadata
(there is no need for a create operation).  See comments in the doc for
details.
- Update the MetadataExchange Assertion to cater for these new operations
(Section 11.1)
- Added faults to support the PutMetadata and DeleteMetadata operations
(Section 10) 

Attached is a marked up version showing the proposal.  I have added further
explanations as comments within the doc itself.

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Received on Thursday, 6 May 2010 16:00:05 UTC