Re: Web Object Services

Mark Baker wrote:

> Jim,
>
> I'd suggest asking yourself "What requirements lead me to needing distributed
> objects based solution?".  If you were to write down those requirements,
> I think you'd find that the Web itself, today, will satisfy most or all
> of them.
>
> The Web is an improvement on distributed objects, not something that will
> be replaced by them.
>
> MB

Thank for your response Mark.

I guess I am not communicating my needs well.
Given your email address I expect you know what an object is.
My requirement is distributed enterprise object management.
The services I am seeking, again, are:

- instantiation and naming
- locations, copy control, caching and mobility
- reference management and garbage collection
- metadata management
- access control
- object and object class versioning and update control
- introspection
- transaction control
- event (and fault) monitoring
- security
- licensing

I have clients in travel, banking and communication management with needs in this
area.

Example1:

Several organizations are sharing objects.
Given object locations http://a.com/apple.xml and http://b.com/apple.xml with the
same attributes.
How do I determine:
- Do the both refer to the same red apple?  Do i have two apples or one?
- How do i find out if I can eat (copy, reference, destroy, license) the apple?
- How can I find out if someone else eats the apple?

How do I do this with existing web capabilities?

I presume we would need some common or coordinated RDF repository.  I would
somehow find the RDF service with UDDI and get the needed SOAP services from the
WSDL definitions?

Is there a better way?  What standards are there for the needed services?  Do
these services exist?  How do web object repositories coordinate these services?

A simpler Example2:

Given is a foreign web object http://yippie.com/apple.gif:
- How do I obtain a unique URN for the object?

Example 3:

I have a repository of 100 apples with varying attributes using AppleSchema1.0
I add 100 more apples in AppleSchema2.0
How do I describe them such that they are all Apple objects?

Perhaps there are answers to these questions, but without the answers the web is
no more than big file store.
Objects on the web is certainly possible today, but unless there are standards we
cannot say "web objects" and not be mixing apples and oranges.

jim

Received on Monday, 10 September 2001 09:51:25 UTC