Glossary for the OASIS WebService Interactive Applications (WSIA/WSRP)

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Work in progress

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Jeffrey C. Broberg

Rev	Date	By Whom	What
00	15 Jan 2002	jbroberg	Initial document from other OASIS TC
00	29 Jan 2002	jbroberg	Removed invalid references, editorial comments
00	01 Feb 2002	jbroberg	Added entries from dgisolfi
01	15 Feb 2002	jbroberg	Moved to color coding for TC activities, and change to the Notation semantics
03	03 May 2002	Jbroberg	Finished adding all submissions from both wsrp/wsia

Glossary for the OASIS WebService Interactive Applications (WSIA) 1

1. Introduction. 3

2. Notation. 3

3. Glossary. 3

Appendix A. Notices. 7

Appendix B. References. 8

1. Introduction

This document is currently a committee submission in line with the recommendations in the proposed WSIA documentation guidelines. Upon agreement of the committee this document will become wsia-draft-glossary-01.doc and form the basis of OASIS WSIA glossary of terms.

In the true spirit of re-use, this is document is very largely based on fellow OASIS glossary documents as referenced. Comments should be directed to the list at wsia@lists.oasis-open.org

This document comprises an overall glossary for the OASIS WebService Interactive Applications Technical Committee (WSIA) and it’s subgroups. Individual WSIA documents and/or subgroup documents may either reference this document and/or “import” select subsets of terms.

Relevant sources for the terms and definitions herein are referenced in Appendix B. Please refer to those sources for definitions of terms not explicitly defined here. Where possible and convenient, hypertext links directly to definitions within the aforementioned sources are included. Some definitions are quoted directly from the sources; some are modified to fit the context of the OASIS WSIA.

2. Notation

Terms that are slated to be deleted are highlighted like so.

Terms that need to be reviewed or defined are highlighted like so.

Terms that need final acceptance are highlighted like so.

Definition senses and/or options – i.e., we need to decide which one(s) to base our usage on -- are denoted by “(a)”, “(b)”, and so on.

Terms in italics within the glossary refer to other terms that are defined in the glossary.

3. Glossary

Following are the defined terms (to be) used in the WSIA specifications and related documents.

Access	1. To interact with a system entity in order to manipulate, use, gain knowledge of, and/or obtain a representation of some or all of a system entity’s resources. [1] 2. in the system domain, what an End user does to a Web site using a browser, or what a Client does to a Web service; 3. in the business domain, what a Consumer does to a Web service or a Web site hosted by a Producer;
Access Control	Protection of resources against unauthorized access; a process by which use of resources is regulated according to a security policy and is permitted by only authorized system entities according to that policy. [1]
Access Rights	A description of the type of authorized interactions a subject can have with a resource. Examples include read, write, execute, add, modify, and delete. [3]
Account	The set of attributes that together define a user’s access to a given service. Each service may define a unique set of attributes to define an account. An account defines user or system access to a resource or service. A means of supporting a hierarchy of adaptations or properties related to portlet invocation for the consuming portal
Action	A notification that your state has changed.
Administrator	A person who installs or maintains a system (for example, a SAML-based security system) or who uses it to manage system entities, users, and/or content (as opposed to application purposes; see also End User). An administrator is typically affiliated with a particular administrative domain and may be affiliated with more than one administrative domain.
Anonymity	The quality or state of being anonymous, which is the condition of having a name or identity that is unknown or concealed. [1]
Attribute Also see ‘Service Attribute’	A distinct characteristic of an object. An object’s attributes are said to describe the object. Objects’ attributes are often specified in terms of their physical traits, such as size, shape, weight, and color, etc., for real-world objects. Objects in cyberspace might have attributes describing size, type of encoding, network address, etc. Salient attributes of an object is decided by the beholder.
Authentication	To confirm a system entity’s asserted principal identity with a specified, or understood, level of confidence. [2] [8]
Authorization	The process of determining, by evaluating applicable access control information, whether a subject is allowed to have the specified types of access to a particular resource. Usually, authorization is in the context of authentication. Once a subject is authenticated, it may be authorized to perform different types of access. [3]
Browser	A system entity that is used by an end user to access a Web site. A browser provides a run-time environment for distributed application components on the client’s device.
Client	a system entity (not a business entity) that accesses a Web service. Contrast with Browser and Customer.
Company	Any organizational entity
Consumer	A business entity that accesses a Web service or a Web site. Contrast with End user and Customer A business entity creating Consumer Applications
Consumer Application	A web application that uses one or more WSIA Web Services
Credential	Data that is transferred to establish a claimed principal identity. [4]
Customer	A business entity that purchases goods or services
End User	1. A natural person who makes use of resources for application purposes (as opposed to system management purposes; see Administrator, User). [4] 2. A person who uses a device specific Browser to access a Web site
Event	A notification that some state in the system (that you are interested in) has changed
Host (verb)	to run an application on an execution platform, which typically consists of hardware and software
Fragment	A piece of markup that is not part of a full document - part of aggregate - not binary, but not necessarily XML - generally a markup language - can aggregate a bunch of fragments
Identity	The unique identifier for a person, organization, resource, or service.
Login, Logon, Sign-On	The process whereby a user presents credentials to an authentication authority, establishes a simple session, and optionally establishes a rich session.
Logout, Logoff, Sign-Off	The process of presenting credentials to an authentication authority, establishing a simple session, and optionally establishing a rich session.
Party	Refers to any person who interacts with the system and/or the network the system is managing.
Portal Application	Component that is the controlling application and is responsible for aggregating portlet content and displaying the portal page
Portal Modes	View, edit, help config, is under debate
Portal Page	Complete document rendered by a portal
Portlet	Component that generates fragment
Portlet Application	The equivalent of the WAR file
Portlet Class	Implementation of portlet as a Java class (compiled code)
Portlet Container	Environment where portlets run (lifecycle, security)
Portlet Content	What the portlet renders without controls that decorate it (fragment that the portlet creates)
Portlet Instance	Portlet object with given user configuration; essentially the handle
Portlet Object	Instance of portlet class (no defined portal state)
Portlet Window	Portlet has a set of controls that decorate it
Portlet Window Instance	Instantiation of a portlet on a page in a portlet window
Principal	A system entity whose identity can be authenticated. [8]
Producer	A business entity that hosts a Web service or a Web site One or more WSIA web services A business entity creating, publishing and supporting WSIA Web Services
Provider	A business entity that sells access to or use of Web services
Pull	To actively request information from a system entity.
Push	To provide information to a system entity that did not actively request it.
Role	The combination of access rights available to a particular actor.
Service	1. A specific type of resource that is not physically obtained by a user, but is accessed periodically by the user. [4] 2. See Web Service
Service Attribute	Characteristics or qualifiers of a service – which describe details like type of encoding, network address, mailbox size for email, storage space for backup, and so on.
Service Offer	The unique combination of service attributes and service options that is provisioned to an identity
Service Option	The choices available within a service – which could be custom configured by the service provider as opposed to a service attribute which is inherent to the service. For example, a Gold Option and a Silver Option – which have to be part of the provisioning data.
Service Provider	The organizational entity that provides the service
Session	A lasting interaction between system entities, often involving a user, typified by the maintenance of some state of the interaction for the duration of the interaction.
Site	An informal term for an administrative domain in geographical or DNS name sense. It may refer to a particular geographical or topological portion of an administrative domain, or it may encompass multiple administrative domains, as may be the case at an ASP site. one portal-specific example of an administrative domain, user group, etc.
System / System Entity	An active element of a computer/network system. For example, an automated process or set of processes, a subsystem, a person or group of persons that incorporates a distinct set of functionality. [1] [7]
Time-Out	A period of time after which some condition becomes true if some event has not occurred. For example, a session that is terminated because its state has been inactive for a specified period of time is said to “time out”.
Uniform Resource Locator (URL)	Defined as “a compact string representation for a resource available via the Internet.” URLs are a subset of URI. [7]
User	A natural person who makes use of a system and its resources for any purpose [7]. See also administrator, end user. A natural person who makes use of a system and its resources for any purpose. See also end user.
Username/User Identity	The unique identity for a user with a system
Web Service	A Web Service is a software component that is described via WSDL and is capable of being accessed via standard network protocols such as but not limited to SOAP over HTTP.
WSIA Web Service	A SOAP-compliant Web Service that adheres to noe of more WSIA interfaces.
Web Site	A hosted application that can be accessed by an End user using a browser
Window States	Max, min, normal, detached
WSIA Interface	A programmatic interface defined by the WSIA committee to support the creation of Web Services that encapsulate and integrate user-facing interactive applications.
WSRP Service	Presentation oriented, interactive web services that can be aggregated by consuming applications - WSRP services can be published, found, and bound in a standard manner, describing themselves with standardized metadata
XML (Extensible Markup Language)	Extensible Markup Language, abbreviated XML [6], describes a class of data objects called XML documents and partially describes the behavior of computer programs which process them. XML is an application profile or restricted form of SGML, the Standard Generalized Markup Language [ISO 8879]
XML Namespace	A collection of names, identified by a URI reference, which are used in XML documents as element types and attribute names. An XML namespace is often associated with an XML schema. For example, SAML defines two schemas, and each has a unique XML namespace.

Appendix A. Notices

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Appendix B. References

Many of the definitions in this glossary are based on those found in the references below: [1], [2] , ^[3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8]