Re: Role of AS2?

It's pretty much a "profile" (in the WS-I sense of the word) for using
existing standards with HTTP.

Unlike Web services though, it uses HTTP as a transfer protocol rather
than a transport protocol.  This is a good thing.

It seems very nicely done to me, and quite RESTful.  The only things I
might have done differently would be to use HTTP GET with MDNs
(simplifying a lot of the MDN stuff), RFC 2774 to get mandatory
extensions, and RFC 2817 instead of dealing with https: URIs.

MB

On Fri, Jun 13, 2003 at 10:46:18AM -0500, Cutler, Roger (RogerCutler) wrote:
> Can anyone comment on the relationship of Web services to AS2
> (http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-ietf-ediint-as2-13.txt).  Is
> this another transport protocol (like SMTP) that can be used underneath
> Web services?  Note that AS2 is built entirely on HTTP, so it doesn't
> seem to be exactly the same kind of thing.  If it is, however, an
> alternative for messaging WS's, does AS2 have some role that should be
> recognized in the security and reliability aspects of Web services?
> 
> One of the reasons I am asking about this is that AS2 has recently
> become a pretty hot topic in business because WalMart, the prototype of
> the 800 lb gorilla, is in the process of mandating that if you want to
> do business with them you have to use AS2.  This is, to put it mildly, a
> very significant driver.  Whether or not AS2, as such, should be
> incorporated somehow into the WSA, I would personally appreciate any
> insights that you folks have about it.

-- 
Mark Baker.   Ottawa, Ontario, CANADA.        http://www.markbaker.ca

Received on Friday, 13 June 2003 12:15:40 UTC