1. Advances in WS-Transaction and WS-Coordination William Cox, Ph.D. OASIS Symposium on Reliable Infrastructure New Orleans 26 April 2004

2. Cox OASIS Symposium 200404262 Outline Motivation and History The Specifications Evolution Specification Techniques Comparisons Standardization Issues Future Summary and References

3. Cox OASIS Symposium 200404263 Disclaimer All opinions are those of the individual author of this presentation, and do not necessarily reflect those of the companies or individuals who are the specification authors. “My opinion, and welcome to it.” - apologies to James Thurber

4. Cox OASIS Symposium 200404264 Motivations Support Business process, legacy integration Designed from the ground up as composable Web services Tailored to specific needs –WS-AT – tightly coupled, legacy integration, rollback semantics –WS-BA – loosely coupled, long running, compensation semantics –WS-C – Factoring of context management

5. Cox OASIS Symposium 200404265 History XA (X/Open) OMG Object Transaction Service –And Extended Structures for OTS XOCP, others BTP (similar goals but more complex) WS-CAF (overlapped completion of v1.1)

6. Cox OASIS Symposium 200404266 Published Specifications August 2002 Publications –WS-Coordination 1.0 –WS-Transaction 1.0 [WS-TX] September 2003 Publications –WS-Coordination 1.1 [WS-C] –WS-AtomicTransaction [WS-AT] January 2004 Publication –WS-BusinessActivity [WS-BA] Abbreviations –WS-Transaction [WS-TX] refers to WS-AT+WS-BA

7. Cox OASIS Symposium 200404267 Specification Relationships WS-Transaction WS- AtomicTransaction WS- BusinessActivity WS-Coordination WS-Addressing v1.0 v1.1

8. Cox OASIS Symposium 200404268 Structural Evolution v1.0-v1.1 WS-AtomicTransaction and WS-BusinessActivity are now separate specifications –Were subparts of WS-TX 1.0 Use of WS-Addressing Endpoint Reference’s opaque ReferenceProperties throughout Editorial and readability improvements Separate publication of WS-AT and WS-BA

9. Cox OASIS Symposium 200404269 Technical Evolution v1.0-v1.1 General –Adopted opaque Endpoint Reference from WS-Addressing v1.0 “roll your own” contributed to WS-Addressing requirements –Updated and enhanced security considerations, policy WS-AT –Renamed to Volatile 2PC, Durable 2PC –Complete state tables WS-BA –Named more consistently BusinessActivityWithCoordinatorCompletion BusinessActivityWithParticipantCompletion –Renamed some states –Complete state tables

10. Cox OASIS Symposium 2004042610 Specification Techniques State reduction through simplification –Factored WS-Coordination –Didn’t try to view state of entire interaction Only the coordinator and participant separate views Some additional care for consistency designed in –Acknowledge then ignore “state smear” Broad applicability for WS-Coordination –WS-AT, WS-BA, other coordinations

11. Cox OASIS Symposium 2004042611 Some Comparisons WS-C/WS-TX –WS-Coordination specified as simple algorithm –WS-AT has 7 states –WS-BA has 8/9 states BTP has 28 Superior, 36 Inferior states –But includes ~ WS-C x WS-BA states in one machine

12. Cox OASIS Symposium 2004042612 Some Comparisons (continued) WS-CAF—Bookkeeping difficult –Builds on context mgt protocol WS-CTX, as does WS-TX –Atomic has 8 states and 14 messages –LRA has many sub-protocols (total of 40 messages)

13. Cox OASIS Symposium 2004042613 Another Comparison Pages of specification –BTP: 188 pages –WS-CAF base docs 240 pages –WS-Coordination+WS-AT+WS-BA 59 pages Does reflect time needed to read and understand

14. Cox OASIS Symposium 2004042614 Standardization Issues Use of WS-Addressing requires standardization of at least Endpoint Reference –This is also an issue for the new WS-Resource Framework and WS-Notification TC base documents Factoring useful if not overdone –WS-TX/WS-C factoring seems about right Specify, demonstrate interoperability, iterate –Focus on interoperable implementations important –When and in which cycle? –More mature specs into standardization process vs buy-in

15. Cox OASIS Symposium 2004042615 The Future Author companies have committed to submitting to a standards organization Feedback meeting March 2004 –See references Comment license required –So can maintain royalty-free approach to these specs Interoperability event in planning

16. Cox OASIS Symposium 2004042616 Summary WS-Transaction and WS-Coordination simple enough, rich enough Composable web services target level Specifications at the right level –Reasonable number of states –Reasonable number of protocols –Comparatively lower complexity than competing specs Progressing to interoperability testing and submission to a standards organization

17. Cox OASIS Symposium 2004042617 References WS-Coordination WS-AtomicTransaction WS-BusinessActivity WS-Addressing IBM Links http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/views/webservices/standards.jsp Alphabetization problems--some under “WS-”, some under “Web Services” Microsoft Links http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnglobspec/html/wsatspecindex.asp BEA Links http://dev2dev.bea.com/technologies/webservices/standards.jsp Interoperability and Feedback http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/offers/WS-Specworkshops/ws-tx200402post.html http://msdn.microsoft.com/webservices/community/workshops/transactionws032004.aspx

18. Cox OASIS Symposium 2004042618 References (continued) WS-CAF (Arjuna, Fujitsu, Iona, Oracle, Sun) July 2003, OASIS TC –http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=ws-cafhttp://www.oasis-open.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=ws-caf BTP OASIS TC http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=business-transaction –BTP 1.0 http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/download.php/1184/2002-06-03.BTP_cttee_spec_1.0.pdf –BTP Primer http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/download.php/2077/BTP_Primer_v1.0.20020605.pdf