Some Thoughts on WSRF61: WS-RF Primer/App Note/Usage Notes

["Alan Weissberger" <ajwdct@technologist.com>]

Following our f2f meeting of July 27-28, we decided it would be a good idea to write a non normative document on how to use the WS-RF family of specs. We were not sure what to call it: Primer/App Note/Usage Notes/ Best Practices document. For now, I will refer to it as "App Note." Brian was good enough to add this to the issues list as WSRF61 and I am responsible for this issue.

While I volunteered to work on the document and believe it is quite important, I am not funded for this activity.  Hence, the time I can spend on it is somewhat limited.   The purpose of this mail is to stimulate interest in the document and solicit others to work on it with me.

In my opinion we need to provide the following content in the App Note document:

-Overview of the WS-RF specs: WS-RP, WS-RL, WS-BF, WS-SG, WS-Renewable References

(suggest one or two paragraphs for each spec description)

-Potential applications, e.g. examples of web services that contain stateful resources (behind the WS interface), Grid Infrastructure layer (along with WS-DM and WS-Notification specs), other WS specs (e.g. WSDM, WS-Notification) that might make use of WSRF specs

-Definitions of various terms: WS Resource, Implied Resource Pattern, Factory Pattern, etc (we can extract information from the two whitepapers (The WS-Resource Framework and Modelling Stateful Resources with Web Services)

-How the WS RF specs compose, i.e. are used together (including any dependencies and interactions).

-Best Practices: clarification of nillable properties* and other items, interpretation of fault messages and potential recovery options, policy issues

-Any issues from the WSRF issues list that we feel is implementation dependent (and therefore non normative/ not subject to standardization)

-How WS-RF specs could be used with WS-Notification specs (as per Peter Niblett's presentation to both TCs at f2f meeting)

-How WS-DM specs (MUWS and MOWS) make use of WS-RF specs (input from WSDM TC would be appreciated).

-How WS-RF specs could make use of WS-Security and WS-Reliable Messaging/ WS Reliability

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*  We specifically stated that Issue WSRF48: Specify behavior of nillable properties was a candidate for the App Note/Primer. "This should be clarified or described as a best practice in the Primer, should we decide to write a Primer."

Any comments, suggestions, ideas?

Alan Weissberger
1 408 863 6042 voice
1 408 863 6099 fax