D-AG0014 - Consistency

This is the kickoff for Goal D-AG0011. I hope we have a lively discussion.

CURRENT GOAL STATEMENT: 
Web Services are consistent with the existing web and its heterogenous environment and distributed architecture to the greatest extent possible.

REFINED GOAL STATEMENT: 
Pending

DISCUSSION:
1. Goal AG0004 covers platform independence. How is this different from heterogeneous environment language of this goal? Reading AG0004 - I am not sure that it is the platform independence which is precluding programming models or communication modes. If the focus of AG0004 is on independence of programming models and communication modes, I think it should remove the platform independence aspect and leave that to this goal, AG0011. 
For convenience, here is AG0004: "ensures platform independence of web services components in a way that does not preclude any programming model nor assume any particular mode of communication between the individual components"

2. I think that this goal is sufficiently exclusive relative to AG0008 ("is coherent and consistent in its definition"), at least the way I read AG0008. I believe (and can certainly be wrong here) that AG0008 talks to the way WS-A describes and models the reference architecture from a notation or syntactic perspective rather than whether the resultant definition is consistent with the existing web, which is the topic of this goal, AG0011. Please correct me if I am wrong, because then AG0008 and AG0011 should be combined, or one should be killed off or redefined.

3. Extracting goals from this statement of 'consistency'. To be consistent with something, we need to get at the salient properties of the target. The goal suggests 2 properties - heterogeneous environment and distributed architecture. How about other properties which are can turn into measurable or observable criteria, hopefully leading to requirements:
- web protocols: TCP, HTTP, URI, XML (may get in trouble here), XMLP
- web architectural constraints or principals: universal identifiers, simplicity, opaqueness, decentralization, statelessness, REST issues: "scalability of component interactions, generality of interfaces, immediate deployment of components,  and intermediary components to reduce interaction latency, enforce security, and encapsulate legacy systems" [1]
- other properties?


CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTORS:

Pending


DERIVED REQUIREMENTS:

Pending


[1] http://www.ics.uci.edu/~fielding/pubs/dissertation/rest_arch_style.htm

Received on Friday, 8 March 2002 13:05:37 UTC