RE: Proposed text on reliability in the web services architecture

It seems to me that the idea of constraints from XML, web services and
so on will "force" a massive rewrite of huge systems like SAP is ...
unlikely in the extreme.  If this really can be viewed as a necessary
consequence of what we are doing I think we'd better think twice or
thrice before we proceed.  But I really don't buy it, to be honest.  

-----Original Message-----
From: Jean-Jacques Dubray [mailto:jjd@eigner.com] 
Sent: Thursday, January 09, 2003 11:49 AM
To: 'bhaugen'; www-ws-arch@w3.org
Subject: RE: Proposed text on reliability in the web services
architecture



I agree Bob that the problems are there no matter how you are factoring
them. I am just concerned when this kind of discussion focus on
technology hacks rather than articulating clearly the
entities/concepts/notions addressed by web services. The question here
is really one of scope. Where does the scope of web services
specification stops and where the "tightly coupled" stuff starts (aka
hacks agreed upon by two parties)?

However, this is an interesting time in for software engineering, we
seem to be getting in a window of opportunity where both middleware and
application architecture will be redesigned, and maybe finally designed
to work together (lessening the need for mediators and adaptors for
instance, as well as seamlessly deal with business entities like POs and
Invoices). 

I am less optimistic than you are about the ERP systems, I think that
the constraints of XML, web services, and process engines will force a
massive rewrite because of customer requirements such as "data
federation" or "process federation" that are more and more critical:
when you have 30 SAP systems like some company I know, you really face
these issues everyday and they are completely in the way of your
business (not to mention when other systems need to get at the SAP
data).

JJ-
 
 

>>-----Original Message-----
>>From: www-ws-arch-request@w3.org [mailto:www-ws-arch-request@w3.org]
On
>>Behalf Of bhaugen
>>Sent: Thursday, January 09, 2003 12:14 PM
>>To: www-ws-arch@w3.org
>>Subject: RE: Proposed text on reliability in the web services
architecture
>>
>>
>>JJ Dubray wrote:
>>> As you move the context of the discussion from an action request to 
>>> interactions with a (distributed) object, you are introducing a 
>>> whole new class of problems that people have wrestling with for 
>>> years.
>>
>>The problems are there anyway.  They are not removed by putting 
>>dispatchers and a Web service access point in front of the distributed

>>objects.
>>
>>If you get rid of the dispatchers and just interact directly with Web 
>>resources which deal in representations of externally- facing business

>>objects, you just removed one or more layers of complexity, but you 
>>still need a mediation layer between the internal object and the 
>>external resource.
>>
>>As Peter Furniss says now and then, there is a fixed
>>amount of complexity involved in this problem, and
>>you can move the factors around and add unneccesary
>>factors, but you can't remove the essential ones.
>>(Peter says it better, but I can't remember his exact words...)
>>
>>(But not all factorings are equal...)
>>

Received on Thursday, 9 January 2003 15:27:00 UTC