[ebxml-iic] Minutes of interop f-2-f and last call,+ next call Nov 11th

[Jacques Durand <JDurand@fsw.fujitsu.com>]

Title: Minutes of interop f-2-f and last call, + next call Nov 11th

All:

Attached are the combined minutes of interop subteam f-2-f,
with Monday 28 call.

We decided to get back to a bi-weekly call instead of a weekly call,
as it seems we loose in amplitude what we gain in frequency...
(not everyone can afford to attend every week, and attendance gets spotty.)

Consequently, the next call will be Monday November 11th, 10am PT.
Host: Fujitsu
Toll free number: 1-877-801-2058
International Number:1-712-257-6652
Participant passcode: 309951

Next call we should have an almost complete draft of basic MS Interop test suite,
except for the scripting of Test Cases (where we'll need Mike's help)

Agenda:

1. MS Interop spec: review of current draft, remaining issues, editorial aspects.
- positioning w/regard to external intiiatives (UCC/DGI, ECOM, eBES).

2. Status on external initiatives and liaisons :
(OAG/NIST, ECOM, CEN/eBES, UeB Architecture Impl. guide)
- the "interim testing" proposal, as deployment guide for test framework (Monica)

3. Deployment templates (Pete)
- template status
- current state of EAN instance (posted on our site), what status in OASIS.

4. test Case material and MS COnformance suite  (Mike, Matt)
- status on the test case scripting.
- remaining issues.

Regards,

jacques

 

Minutes of IIC October 28 (combined with Interop f-2-f Oct 25), 2002
--------------------------------------------------------------------
 
Call info:
---------

Time: Monday October 28th,  10am PT. 
SeeBeyond  hosting (Pete Wenzel)
Dialing information is as follows:
US Toll-Free: 866-628-8003
International: +1 630-424-4862
Passcode: 8500499# 

Minute taker: Jacques Durand


Present (combined interop subteam f-2-f Friday and Monday call):
--------

Mike Kass (NIST) (call)
Jaques Durand (Fujitsu) (call + f-2-f)
Hatem El-Sebaaly(IPNetSolutions)( f-2-f)
Monica Martin (DrakeCertivo)(call + f-2-f)
Tony Blazej (OAG)( f-2-f)
Steve Yung (Sun)( f-2-f)


Agenda:
-------

1. F-2-F: review and finalize MS Basic Interop test suite.
- review of ECOM tests.
- sub-team f-2-f output.

2. Status on external initiatives and liaisons : 
(OAG/NIST, ECOM, CEN/ISSS, UeB Architecture Impl. guide) 
- review of our liaisons to various groups.
- the "interim testing" proposal, as deployment guide for test framework (Monica)

3. Deployment templates (Pete)
- template status
- current state of EAN instance (posted on our site), what status in OASIS.

4. test Case material and MS COnformance suite  (Mike, Matt)
- status on the test case definitions.


Minutes:
--------

1. Interoperability Test suite: 

- Interop sub-team face-to-face took place Friday 9am - 3pm+
(Steve, Hatem, Jacques, Monica, Tony), at IPNetSolution (Hatem), Orange County.

- Overall schedule for submission as a TC spec - possibly for OASIS standard:
. November 30th: a complete initial version of our three specs should be 
submitted for TC review: 
(1) Test Framework (includes functional spec of framework components,
Test Driver, Test Service, plus scripting of test cases)
(2) MS Conformance Test suite (editor Mike Kass)
(3) MS Interop Test suite  (Basic Interop Profile, editor Steve Yung)
. January 2nd: email vote starts, for acceptance as a TC specification,
to end 1 week after. 
. Meanwhile, some implementation initiatives are expected:
(IPNetSolutions, NIST, XMLGlobal)
. Per OASIS rule, in order to be submitted as OASIS standard, three vendor
implementations have to validate the specs. The Test Framework at least could be 
a candidate for OASIS standard. Depends on implementation work.

- The sub-team conmfirmed the principles of interop testing (interoperability
is an application-level contract, asymmetrical testing, exclude conformance tests, 
test case control and validation from a single node.)

- The sub-team conmfirmed the composition of the Basic Interoperability 
Profile (BIP), as drafted currently. The signals (Ack) interop testing may
require a "manual" check in MSH log associated with test Driver, in some
cases.

- was changed: the initial proposal that there should be no options in an
interop test suite. In fact, the Basic Interop suite will be parameterized
based on (1) transport, (2) possibly other parameters like message size.
Also the architecture should remain abstract - e.g. the way the Test Driver
initiates a test case in the Test Service, will not be specified (no adapter
or interface described).

- The BIP will not try to address specific business
needs, but is a common interop baseline to be relevant to all user communities.

- Comparisons with UCC/DGI test suite was posted, and we did comparison
of IIC BIP with ECOM test suite. As for UCC/DGI, ECOM interop suite has several
conformance tests. The BIP was found a subset of ECOM, except for no-payload
messages (not used in ECOM).

- Jacques will do an initial clean-up of current spec based on [some of] 
the above, and will hand over to Steve to take over. 
(clean-up to be labeled V0.5 on our site). 
Clean-up includes adding activity diagrams for test cases, suggested by Monica.  


2. External initiatives

- Liaisons: (note: there are some "tandem" asignments.)
And again, it is OK for others to follow, interact and report
on external activities. Only, the liaisons can let the external
group know that they are official representatives of IIC.
- CEN / eBES  : Steve Yung
- OAG/NIST Testbed team: : Monica M. (organization) ,  Mike K. (Technical)
- freebXML : Matt McK.
- ECOM : Iwasa, Jacques
- EAN and E-Centre : Thomas B. (from EAN) 
- JMT : Monica M.
- ebXML Architecture group, UN/CEFACT : Monica M.
- RosettaNet : Pete Wenzel

- We got the interop project draft from eBES.  IIC material is explicitly used for their project.
Their project require "concurrent" testing, which we consider beyond basic interop (same
for scalability testing, stress testing). Once we have a precise definition of the BIP, will communicate
to eBES (Christopher Frank) for review.

- Monica proposed a deployment project for the Test Framework, called
"interim testing" (or maintenance testing). It addresses a very practical 
concern voiced by B2B users of OAG/NIST testbed, namely the need to verify 
on a periodical basis the conformance and interoperability of their end-points.
(without having to undergo the current logistic-heavy matrix testing)
We may start an activity on this if enough interest, once we are done with
initial Test Framework spec and MS test suites.


3. Deployment templates 

- EAN (Thomas) have reviewed the  EAN-specific instance of Deployment
Template, and found it agreable.
- No more report, Pete could not attend call, neither Thomas.


4. test Case material and MS COnformance suite  (Mike, Matt)

- Mike presented current status of MS test case scripting.
(about half way through the 216 test requirements).
- mentioned issues about granularity of our test conditions:
Should we validate discrete parts of a document/header separately from
schema validation.
- other issues: some test cases will require "manula intervention", e.g.
when system failure is involved to check persistence of messages. 
A specific step operation may be needed, that will be about telling a 
human operator what to do (email?).
- Also: we need to have in mind initialization of Test Driver, and
synchronization aspects (time-dependent) for each test case.
Idea is that all data needed for setting-up a test case is part of the
test case material.
- Some operation may be enhanced, e.g. getMessage should be able to wait
for and get a specified number of messages that satisfy its filter
(e.g. for counting retries).
- timeout values need be set for steps of a test case (might be a default
one at suite level, overridable by some specific ones.)