RE: [Fwd: RE: on the issue of PartyId]

["Brunner, Eric" <EBrunner@Engage.com>]

I concure, and (wearing another hat) am part of the group(s) working on
making the e.164 numbering plan map to the dns, hence making "telephone
numbers" map to URIs.

-----Original Message-----
From: Christopher Ferris [mailto:chris.ferris@east.sun.com]
Sent: Thursday, September 21, 2000 10:36 AM
To: ebxml transport
Subject: [Fwd: RE: on the issue of PartyId]


nor this one...

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: RE: on the issue of PartyId
Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2000 22:41:53 -0700
From: "Burdett, David" <david.burdett@commerceone.com>
To: Christopher Ferris <chris.ferris@east.sun.com>

The bottom line (almost) of Chris' email said ...

>>>Thus, I would propose that we adopt use of a URI as the value of the
PartyId element.<<<

I agree for the reasons Chris gave. The only caveat I would have is that, in
the EDI world, Telephone numbers *are* used to uniquely identify a business.
I therefore think we also need to support this format.

Chris is right that telephone numbers can be re-allocated to new
individuals/businesses and therefore do not strictly meet the requirement
for a URN on their own. However a telephone number **at a point in time** is
unique. Open to alternative suggestions but what might work is to define
PartyId with a default type of URI, but allow an alternative of a telephone
number with a recommendation that the value be considered in conjunction
with the date/time that the message was created in order to assure
consistent results. In practice though, the probability of a clash is low.

David



-----Original Message-----
From: Christopher Ferris [mailto:chris.ferris@east.sun.com]
Sent: Thursday, September 14, 2000 7:57 PM
To: ebxml transport
Subject: on the issue of PartyId


I scrounged the archives and came up with the following postings on the
topic:

http://lists.ebxml.org/archives/ebxml-transport/200008/msg00073.html
http://lists.ebxml.org/archives/ebxml-transport/200008/msg00079.html
http://lists.ebxml.org/archives/ebxml-transport/200008/msg00084.html
http://lists.ebxml.org/archives/ebxml-transport/200008/msg00093.html
http://lists.ebxml.org/archives/ebxml-transport/200008/msg00095.html
http://lists.ebxml.org/archives/ebxml-transport/200008/msg00082.html
http://lists.ebxml.org/archives/ebxml-transport/200008/msg00098.html
http://lists.ebxml.org/archives/ebxml-transport/200008/msg00107.html
http://lists.ebxml.org/archives/ebxml-transport/200008/msg00097.html
http://lists.ebxml.org/archives/ebxml-transport/200008/msg00111.html

I feel that these postings capture fairly well the discussion on
PartyId. I have omitted the zillion related postings on whether
to regrep or not to regrep on a message send/receipt as irrelevant
to the discussion.

Dick's posting made a noble attempt to articulate the various
points: http://lists.ebxml.org/archives/ebxml-transport/200008/msg00098.html

Dick wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
One requirement:

Any two trading partners should be permitted to use non-standard  values for
context and authority. The specs must provide an extension mechanism to
allow
this type of customization.  For example MIME permits header extensions
through
the X-hhhhhhh option, X12 has the "ZZ" qualifier, etc. Consider a possible
example, using Amazon:

<PartyId context="X-Amazon" authority="userid">RJB9876</PartyId>

This, I believe, would address David B's concern over having parties
pre-register with recognized "Name space management organizations".
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

David Burdett's proposal:
http://lists.ebxml.org/archives/ebxml-transport/200008/msg00082.html
rings true with what I had been advocating (use of URI syntax and NO context
attribute
since the URI provides its own context. I could conceive of use of an
attribute
which allowed typing ala BizTalk (which uses xsd:type to declare the type of
the
value, but not necessarily the namespace) as this might be seen as useful in
parsing the value and would permit non-URI syntax to be used as the PartyId
value.

I think that it is important that we understand (and agree upon) how this 
header element will be used within the MessagingService (let us leave the
Application(Support) layer aside for the moment). 

	- routing: an MS might simply be serving as a "mailbox" server (as
many of the
	existing implementations handle the initial receipt of a message) in
which
	case the "From" might be the "mailbox" identifier
(mailto:companyX.com)
	into which the MS should place the message received. It isn't
important
	that the MS "know" *who* companyX.com *is* (e.g. no reg/rep lookup
need be
	involved).  The MS might resolve the "From" id to an address
(mailbox, queue
	whatever) but all that is needed here is a mapping between the key
(PartyId)
	and some value (mailbox address). 

	- logging: an MS might be required to log all messages processed, in
which 
	case having the "To" and "From" logged (without having to look
anything else
	up in say a reg/rep or in a TPA store) along with other interesting
bits
	which might be found in the headers would be useful. Again, it is
probably
	not important that the log contain the formal company name (resolved
from
	the logical id) in the log file. This could be processed after the
fact
	if it was important that this information be known to someone
"reading" the
	log much the same as most web sites merely log the IP address and
not the
	DNS resolved hostname.domainname (which is expensive and makes the
site
	less performant) because this can be resolved later when (and IF)
the
	log entry needs to be analyzed.
	
	- delivery: if we accept David's scenario (and no, I am not;-) of a
	TPA-less exchange, then the "To" might be used to map to some
physical
	address using some manner of I2L (URI to URL) resolution (THTTP?
DNS?). In fact,
	if the "logical" address were a URL (which is a URI) then no lookup
would
	be required at all. Again, from the MS perspective, it is NOT
important
	that it "know" *who* the entity/party is. The implementation would
merely
	have a responsibility to know how to perform the I2L resolution. If
the
	"key" (I) were unique (as is the case of any URI) then there is no
need
	to agree to which code set is used, just that it be unique so as to 
	enable the resolution service to map the URI to a URL. A simple
hashtable
	of key/value pairs could easily accomodate the mapping.

	in the case where a TPA *is* present, then the "To" might be used to

	resolve the communication protocol specifics within the TPA itself
(map the
	PartyId of the Header to the PartyId of the TPA or to some other
Party
	identifier (possibly, the TPA should have something akin to what
UDDI
	has to associate a number of different identifiers with a
BusinessEntity)
	...) Heck, the PartyId in the Header could be the *same* value as
the
	PartyId in the TPA;-) e.g. tpa:partyid:12345.

	- security: again, in the absense of a TPA, one might conceive of
	use of the "From" PartyId used by the MS as a key to a credentials
registry which
	could contain the certificate (or passwd) which the receiving party
uses
	to validate the signature (or passwd) with which the message was
signed.
	Of course, this information would be in the TPA (one would expect)
in which
	case the "From" might be used within the context of the TPA to find
	the certificate/credentials.

There may be other uses, but I for one cannot think of them (it's late;-)

The bottom line is that the identifier must be unique within *some*
namespace
so that the MS can resolve it (somehow) to something useful in the MS
processing
context. It is not necessary (based upon the use cases above) that the *who*
be resolved from the registry which allocated the id (ISO whatever) 
	
Thus, I would propose that we adopt use of a URI as the value of the
PartyId element. 

<element ref="PartyId" type="uriReference"/>

with examples such as those (except the urn:tel: example which is to my
understanding an invalid URN because it is not persistent) identified
in David's email.

I do NOT believe that we need to specify a set of 
code sets other than possibly as examples (NON-NORMATIVE) as to how
PartyId may be (should be?) used. That (I believe) should be left
to the parties to agree to (can you say TPA? I knew you could;-). 

Comments?

Chris



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