Re: SOAP Binding Framework Concerns

Marwan Sabbouh wrote:
> 
> Let us take your example one step further and say someone wants reliable delivery of
> SOAP messages over UDP.  There are two ways of doing it
> 
> Case 1:  Since UDP is unreliable, that person uses a reliable delivery protocol that
> works on top of UDP.  We Call it xxRTP.  The protocol stack then looks like this:
> 
> 
> +-------------------+                     +-------------------+
> | Application  |<--contract1-->|  Application |
> +-------------------+                     +-------------------+
>           ^                                             ^
>            | contract2              contract2 |
>           v                                             v
> +-------------------+                       +-------------------+
> |     SOAP      |<-- contract3-->|    SOAP      |
> +-------------------+                       +-------------------+
>           ^                                             ^
>            | contract4              contract4 |
>           v                                             v
> +-------------------+                      +-------------------+
> | xxRTP   |<-- contract5-->|  xxRTP   |
> +-------------------+                      +-------------------+
> 
> in this case, xxRTP provides the reliability and correlation of requests and replies.
> I conclude that all is needed is a mapping that shows how SOAP messages are carried in
> xxRTP's PDUs.
> 
...and the specification of xxRTP which in my view can equally be in the 
binding spec as in a separate spec.

The key thing here is that the binding can say "I support a specific 
flavour of request response" (where a specific flavour of request 
response is identified by a URI and is an instance of a message exchange 
pattern - one or more of which we may define in the spec, leaving others 
to define additional ones as required) and the SOAP layer knows that 
what that binding means by request response is the same as any other 
binding. That way I can write my SOAP application in blissfull ignorance 
of which underlying protocol is being used rather than tying it to a 
particular underlying protocol and it's details. This, I think, is what 
the binding framework is trying to set the foundations for.

> Case 2: Someone would like to provide reliability and correlation at a higher layer.


Agree with what you wrote here. We provide the module framework (i.e. 
the SOAP envelope and processing rules) rather than every conceivable 
module. The binding framework is trying to do the same thing below SOAP.

Regards,
Marc.
-- 
Marc Hadley <marc.hadley@sun.com>
XML Technology Centre, Sun Microsystems.

Received on Wednesday, 24 October 2001 11:38:00 UTC