Re: SOAP and transfer/transport protocols

On Tue, May 28, 2002 at 08:07:45AM -0400, Champion, Mike wrote:
> > It is a complete non-starter for an Internet scale architecture to do
> > what you and David are suggesting. 
> 
> Perhaps because our employers sell millions of dollars worth of software to
> companies that do the kinds of things that we are suggesting, and have been
> doing it for years and years!  Suggesting to them that they rip out their
> DCOM, CORBA, J2EE, MQ, etc. systems and put in HTTP Everywhere would be the
> non-starter, I'm afraid.

I'm not suggesting that.  I'm suggesting (in the context of your point)
that trying to move an Intranet based system to the Internet is not
simply a matter of relocating it outside a firewall.  There is a
qualitative change when having to deal with trust boundaries.

HTTP can be used for integration over the Internet, but then be made to
fit with the kind of Intranet based systems you describe above when it
arrives at the firewall.  My company's products do just this (though
we're not targetting that market).

> > On the other hand, if you 
> > only want Web services to work behind the firewall, then this would be 
> > the easiest way to ensure that
> 
> Fair enough ... a lot of this kind of stuff *is* done behind firewalls, and
> many of the issues you raise *do* become salient when moving to the Web.
> Nevertheless "web services" are quite appropriate to application integration
> and supply chain integration problems that don't have to deal with "pesky
> trust boundaries."  That challenge is to do it better, in a cheaper, more
> standardized way.  That's probably why our employers pay us be here, so
> forgive us for reminding you of our requirements :~)

8-)

But, wouldn't it be great if you could get company-to-company
interaction working as frictionless as you do web-browser to web-server
interactions?  Not to suggest that there isn't friction, but just to say
that the technology in use wouldn't add to it.

That's what I thought people wanted to do with Web services, which is
why I'm pushing so hard for a Web architecture friendly solution.  If
we don't, and are content to hide behind a firewall, then I'd be happy
to shut up.

MB
-- 
Mark Baker, CTO, Idokorro Mobile (formerly Planetfred)
Ottawa, Ontario, CANADA.               distobj@acm.org
http://www.markbaker.ca        http://www.idokorro.com

Received on Tuesday, 28 May 2002 09:25:41 UTC