Re: Comments of CPP

[Martin W Sachs <mwsachs@us.ibm.com>]

Duane,

In my previous reply, I neglected to respond to this comment:

   Becuase Business Process's can be adopted from multiple sources (who
   each define their own semantics and Roles) I see a possible collision of
   names used to describe roles within different business processes.

I'm not sure what you mean by "multiple sources".  <CollaborationProtocol>
points to an XML document that is the output of the BP Specification Schema
specificationfor one business process.  This describes the business
transactions for the specific 2-party collaboration using the specified
business process.  So the whole specification of the collaboration protocol
comes from one source - the definition of the business process, manifested
in the outout of the Specification Schema for that process. So within that
document, there should be no name collisions.

However in writing the above, the following came to mind which may be what
you are concerned with:
If a CPP has links to multiple collaboration protocol documents, then there
might be a collision of role names between collaboration protocol
documents.  The answer, I think is the following:

   The delivery channel already provides for one or more service bindings.
   Each points to a different collaboration protocol document.

   My proposal was to move the roles into the delivery channels.  To solve
   your problem, the role name (just one) would be under each service
   binding tag or maybe would be an attribute of the tag.

   The above should resolve the naming clashes.  Since the role name is
   significant to only one service binding tag, which points to only one
   collaboration protocol document, a clash of role names is of no
   significance.  Party X can play role name "A" in one collaboration
   protocol and can play the same role name "A", which has very different
   function, in a different collaboration protocol and there is no
   confusion.  This is exactly the same idea as my original suggestion in
   which party X plays role "A" in one instance of the collaboration
   protocol and plays role "B" (the other role) in the second instance of
   the same collaboration protocol.  In most cases, these issues relate
   only to the CPP since I expect that in general, a CPA will contain only
   one collaboration protocol.

Comments, anyone else?

Regards,
Marty

Regards,
Marty






*************************************************************************************

Martin W. Sachs
IBM T. J. Watson Research Center
P. O. B. 704
Yorktown Hts, NY 10598
914-784-7287;  IBM tie line 863-7287
Notes address:  Martin W Sachs/Watson/IBM
Internet address:  mwsachs @ us.ibm.com
*************************************************************************************



Duane Nickull <duane@xmlglobal.com> on 01/18/2001 06:54:03 PM

To:   ebxml-tp@lists.ebxml.org
cc:
Subject:  Comments of CPP



Hello Marty/all:

In the CPP example,  near the bottom of the XML Document,  there is an
element <CollaborationProtocol> that encapsulates each business process
supported by the party ID'ed at the top of the CPP document.  Each
Business Process can have one, two or more roles defined.  In some cases
the roles may be identified by words such as "Buyer" and "Seller" (as
per the example).  Other more generic terms may be used as well such as
"Submitter" or "Receiver".

The <Roles> element near the top of the document defines a Party's
ability to fulfill a certain role within a business process.

Becuase Business Process's can be adopted from multiple sources (who
each define their own semantics and Roles) I see a possible collision of
names used to describe roles within different business processes.

Is it possible to keep the existing <CollaborationProtocol> structure
near the end of the CPP document however,  place an element within it to
allow the party to state which roles it supports.  The element would
have to be able to occur one or more times.

eg>

<CollaborationProtocol version = "1.0"
                       id = "N07"
                       xlink:type = "locator"
xlink:href="http://www.foo.com/purchasing.xml">
                       Buy and Sell
  <!-- This role would be explicitly called out in the actual Business
Process XML document-->
  <Role>Buyer</Role>
  <Role>Seller</Role><!--can receive the PO as well as send them out-->
</CollaborationProtocol>


Comments?

Duane Nickull