Re: Definition of ' business transaction'

[Todd Boyle <tboyle@rosehill.net>]

FWIW the ISO 10746-3 definition of a transaction is

13.7       Transaction function
13.7.1      Concepts

13.7.1.1 Transaction: An activity which leads to a set of object state 
changes consistent with a dynamic schema (and its
constraining invariant schema).

13.7.1.2 Action of interest: An action in a transaction which leads to a 
state change of significance to the transaction.

13.7.1.3 Visibility: The degree to which a transaction can access object 
state concurrently with other transactions.

13.7.1.4 Recoverability: The degree to which object state changes resulting 
from failed transactions are cancelled.

13.7.1.5 Permanence: The degree to which failures can affect object state 
changes due to completed transactions.

The CPA's definition of a transaction is anything the client
was able to make stick, regardless of how he managed to
do it.  Many transactions are really pretty ambiguous, particularly
B2C, and disambiguating them sometimes results in lower sales.
Todd

At 04:24 AM 9/3/01, bhaugen wrote:
> > > The ebXML Glossary
> > > (http://www.ebxml.org/specs/ebGLOSS_print.pdf)includes
> > > the following definition:
> > > "A business transaction is a logical unit of business
> > > conducted by two or more parties that generates a computable
> > >success or failure state."
> >
> > Which raises two questions in my mind:
> >
> > (a) what is a logical unit of business? (not defined in the glossary)
> > (b) can anyone identify a logical unit of business which, as a consequence
> > of this definition, is not a business transaction?
> >
> > Mike Kay
>
>The glossary definition is a little too terse.
>
>Richard Moon's message from which the above clip was extracted
>also went on to say:
> >I would also suggest you read section 5.1 of the Business Process
> >Specification Schema (http://www.ebxml.org/specs/ebBPSS_print.pdf).
>
>Transaction is a very overloaded word.  Business Transaction has a
>very specific meaning in ebXML - it is a very specific structural element
>in the BPSS.
>
>-Bob Haugen
>
>
>
>
>
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