[Date Prev] | [Thread Prev] | [Thread Next] | [Date Next] -- [Date Index] | [Thread Index] | [List Home]
Subject: RE: [ebxml-bp] BPSS executability and where it ends
Serm's conclusions and observations are in line with my own, with regard to what is/is not achievable using BPSS. I present the actual business cases I'm working on to describe what I believe BPSS needs to provide, in order to be beneficial (to me). First, I'll provide some background about my project areas, this will be followed by a description of the Service Oriented Architecture being developed in these project areas and lastly I describe the "missing pieces" which BPSS may be able to fill, some day. Background: Electric markets around the world are deregulating. Utility companies are being split into separate legal entities and information exchange which was department-to-department within a utility are transformed into business-to-business information exchanges. In addition, new competitors are entering these markets. A "standard" B2B infrastructure is needed to facilitate the "new market". Certain "functions" (e.g. scheduling capacity of transmission system resources, balancing power generation with demand, etc.) remain regulated and these functions are performed by a central "Transmission Authority" (TA). The TA must provide "services" to all market participants on a fair and equal basis. Architecture: The role of a centralized TA is ideally suited for a Service Oriented Architecture B2B infrastructure. In one sense the TA is managing an auction site where power generators submit "offers" to sell power and power purchases are made each half hour. All parties are notified of auction results on the half hour and specific generators are given operating instructions for the period. A service oriented architecture lets the central Transmission Authority "publish" services that are available to all market participants. Each service is described in terms of: - its "Service" and "Action" values (used within the ebXML header message within ebMS when invoking the service) - the input required to perform the service (e.g. required Manifest contents - described as XML Schema documents) - the output produced by the service (e.g. described as an ebXML message with Service and Action values that will be returned, along with output data described using XML Schema). For example, the "Offer to Sell Power" service provided to Market Participants by the Central TA might be described generically as follows: <serviceDescription>Offer to Sell Power <Entry-point-url>http://.../URI-to-ebMSH <Message-Exchange-Pattern synchronous=true delivery-ack-requested=true>Request-Response <request-service>PowerSales <request-action>OffertoSell <request-payload-required>http://.../OffertoSell.xsd <response-service>PowerSales <response-action>ResultsofOffertoSell <response-payload-provided>http://.../ResultsofOffertoSell.xsd At a cursory level, this is all the information needed to describe the EXTERNAL interface of services available to market participants by a TA. The details of how a service is implemented by the TA is not necessary for a market participant to invoke a service and indeed the TA may consider the "processing steps" to be sensitive information that it does not wish to disclose. On the other hand the TA will want to maintain a detailed "choreography" of the steps performed within each service. This is the "executable" business process the TA performs whenever a service is invoked. Likewise a market participant may have their own "choreography" associated with a service, which they do not wish to disclose to a TA when invoking a service. Missing Pieces: The ebXML Message Service clearly provides the facilities to implement a service oriented architecture and is the prescribed solution for secure, reliable implementation. WSDL appears to provide the means to describe the "external interface" of a service, but it appears deficient in its support for ebXML MS. BPSS appears to provide a description of a business process but contains "too much" information, that may be considered sensitive, or perhaps irrelevant given the individual nature of "internal" business processes of each trading party. What "I need" is: 1. a standard "external service description" which contains the minimal information needed to invoke a service from an external source AND 2. a flexible means to describe and implement the steps associated with each service, ideally this description would be "executable" by a "workflow engine". At this time, I don't believe BPSS or WSDL meet my needs, but I am participating in both efforts in the hope that this will be rectified. Sincerely, Dick Brooks B2B Integration and Cyber Security Consultant http://www.tech-comm.com/dbc Mobile:602-684-1484 eFax:240-352-0714 -----Original Message----- From: Boonserm (Serm) Kulvatunyou [mailto:serm@nist.gov] Sent: Thursday, November 06, 2003 9:44 PM To: ebxml-bp@lists.oasis-open.org Subject: Re: [ebxml-bp] BPSS executability and where it ends I have a comment here that I would like to hear comments. I think I totally understand the role of BPSS in the B2B Collaboration and its functionality and scope as Monica quoted from the charter makes a total sense to me. However, when I came to think again about this scope against the ebXML vision of dynamically composing, configuring, and execution of the collaboration, the expressiveness of BPSS alone may not sufficiently facilitate that. If the two parties have no way of seeing and dynamically aligning/agreeing with some underlying business logic (which will likely be not apparent in the BPSS), I think such vision will not be realizable. Parties agreeing on the same BPSS only agree on the format and data (not taking into account infra level) to be exchanged and not the behaviors associated with the data. I am not sure if I took the ebXML vision too further away. I understand that some dynamic configuration alignment can happen up to some level like MSH. Taking a PO example. Even if a PO biz process says that it is the exchange of ProcessPO and AckPO, there can be a lot of other underlining agreement to be done off-line. Like if your shipment has more than 5% scrap, I will return. Will anything like BPEL, etc support this or is there some way to engineer this into the BPSS as of now? Comments? -serm ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jussi Lemmetty" <jussi.lemmetty@republica.fi> To: "Monica J. Martin" <Monica.Martin@Sun.COM> Cc: <ebxml-bp@lists.oasis-open.org> Sent: Tuesday, November 04, 2003 3:09 PM Subject: RE: [ebxml-bp] BPSS executability and where it ends Monica, I wasn't completely clear expressing what I meant with BPSS describing 'one side'. How I was trying to visualize the BPSS-configured layer was that it acts as a curtain between organizations stage and backstage. BPSS describes what happens on the (visible to partners) stage. Whatever is bound to the curtains backstage, is not necessarily visible to others. Since BPSS is shared among partners and they might have different runtime-systems, any binding-information (which might be partner-specific) should be in separate definition instance. I hope this clarified what I had in mind. I was probably thinking the deployment-time too much when writing :) Jussi -----Original Message----- From: Monica J. Martin [mailto:Monica.Martin@Sun.COM] Sent: 4. marraskuuta 2003 16:58 To: Jussi Lemmetty Cc: ebxml-bp@lists.oasis-open.org Subject: Re: [ebxml-bp] BPSS executability and where it ends Jussi Lemmetty wrote: >Hi, > >I'm yet another one to agree on the executability of BPSS, meaning that BPSS-instance should contain enough information to be deployable without excessive configuration-phase. > >What comes to the definitions of process/transaction binding to back-end systems, it's getting quite case/implementation/technology dependant. > >During the first teleconference, I mentioned having done something with BPSS and agents (one kind of approach to execution). >Here's a link: http://www.kanetti.fi/~juslem/docs/Bridging%20the%20gap.pdf > >My point is, that there are several ways in practice to produce the runtime for the BPSS (as expressed already here on the list), so clarification to the boundaries of executability is something I'm eager to see agreed upon. How I see it, BPSS is deployable configuration describing one side of the organizations public process and specifications that are defining the binding to back-end systems should be considered/recommended but not anchored. > > mm1: Jussi, typically BPSS describes the shared view of both parties, not just one party. This is in contrast to lower level views from one party's perspective such as described in WS-BPEL. If you look at your charter and previous specification versions: "The ebXML Business Process Specification Schema provides for the nominal set of specification elements necessary to specify a collaboration between business partners, and to provide configuration parameters for the partners’ runtime systems in order to execute that collaboration between a set of e-business software components." (ebBPSS, v1.05). Bindings may be within our scope as defined in the charter, although the first primary focus is the specification itself (The bindings may be expressed in white papers or other position documents). "The ebBP TC may identify bindings to support the business process instance and ultimately the run-time execution. A binding (map) could enable other executable process mechanisms to drive enterprise applications where ebBP controls (rather than create) service behavior." I believe if we can first place boundaries that differentiate computability and execution, we can lay the groundwork for future development. Thanks. >Cheers, >Jussi > >-------------------------------------------- >Jussi Lemmetty >Product Manager >Republica Corp., R&D Labs >Ohjelmakaari 1 >40500 Jyväskylä >Finland >E-mail: jussi.lemmetty@republica.fi >Tel. +358 (0)443 011 146 >http://www.republica.fi/ >http://www.x-fetch.com/ > >
[Date Prev] | [Thread Prev] | [Thread Next] | [Date Next] -- [Date Index] | [Thread Index] | [List Home]