RE: [i95, i22] - Proposal for clarifying use of SOAPAction

Daniel wrote:
> Do servers typically accept different types of requests/messages at
> a given URI?

Absolutely yes! I've been intimately familiar with one
such server since 1994....

Our clients prefer this "single choke point" from a
security and administrative perspective.

> Is the differentiation for the top-level HTTP server?  What would
> it do differently based on whether a message was a SOAP message or
> some other message type?

I'm aware of at least three general design patterns being used at an
E-Commerce "port of entry":

1. Generic message broker (single server/dispatcher that invokes appropriate
handler)
2. Specific type of broker (e.g. SOAP only, EDIINT only)
3. Specific business function (e.g. process_purchase_order, and lots of
typical CGI/ASP/JSP functions)
   these can be processing SOAP, XML-RPC, RMI, multipart/form-data, and/or
many others..


Dick Brooks
Group 8760
110 12th Street North
Birmingham, AL 35203
dick@8760.com
205-250-8053
Fax: 205-250-8057
http://www.8760.com/

InsideAgent - Empowering e-commerce solutions

> -----Original Message-----
> From: xml-dist-app-request@w3.org [mailto:xml-dist-app-request@w3.org]On
> Behalf Of Daniel Barclay
> Sent: Tuesday, May 01, 2001 5:42 PM
> To: frystyk@microsoft.com
> Cc: 'Doug Davis'; xml-dist-app@w3.org
> Subject: Re: [i95, i22] - Proposal for clarifying use of SOAPAction
>
>
> Henrik Frystyk Nielsen wrote:
> >
> ....
> > That would be bad as we then have no mechanism for identifying a SOAP
> > HTTP request.
>
> Do servers typically accept different types of requests/messages at
> a given URI?
>
>
> (Can someone enhance my understanding of how a SOAP server would
> typically be set up?
>
> I would think that a SOAP server would be set up at a given URL
> (or that URL and "child" URLs) within an HTTP server.  Only SOAP
> messages should be posted to that URL.  The SOAP server would handle
> only two kinds of messages:  messages it recognized as valid SOAP
> messages those that it did not recognize.
>
> I don't see a need for such a SOAP server to differentiate SOAP
> requests from any other valid requests.
>
> So what am I not thinking of?
>
> Is the differentiation for a not-just-SOAP dispatcher that receives
> POST requests at some URI, and calls a SOAP handler for SOAP message
> and other handlers for other messages?
>
> Is the differentiation for the top-level HTTP server?  What would
> it do differently based on whether a message was a SOAP message or
> some other message type?
>
> Is the differentiation for caches or firewalls or something similar?
>
> Is the differentiation for something else?
>
> Thanks.)
>
>
>
> Daniel
> --
> Daniel Barclay
> Digital Focus
> Daniel.Barclay@digitalfocus.com
>

Received on Wednesday, 2 May 2001 13:39:39 UTC