OFF TOPIC RESPONSE to Re: Reliable Messaging Spec v0-078

[dick@8760.com]

Ajay,

I too have wondered if Bill Gates is receiving "news feeds" with regard to
ebXML. I do know that several people within Microsoft are aware of ebXML, one in
particular, Satish Thatte, the BizTalk Framework 2 Architect, is well aware. I
think Satish is a lurker on this list, so perhaps he will comment on your
question.

FYI - I've had e-mail exchanges over the past 6 months with Satish and David
Turner at Microsoft regarding  interoperability and/or convergence of the two
efforts, but there has been no progress. The next best hope for building synergy
between the two initiatives will occur within the W3C XML Protocol Activity
(W3C/XP). I'll be representing ebXML at an upcoming meeting of the W3C/XP and
will try to keep the ebXML group as informed as possible of W3C/XP activities.

<nostalgia>
When I was a member of the Boston Computer Society in the 1980's Bill Gates
would personally present the next latest/greatest Microsoft technology to the
group. I distinctly remember when Bill first presented VB to the BCS, he was
passionate and he really believed in his products ability to change programming
forever. Bill was in touch with what people wanted and now VB is a hugely
popular language.  To make a claim that XML is the answer for interoperability
is a complete failure to understand the problem space - very uncharacteristic of
the Bill Gates I remember to be this far "out of touch".
</nostalgia>


Regards,

Dick Brooks
http://www.8760.com/


----- Original Message -----
From: Ajay K Sanghi <sanghi@giasdl01.vsnl.net.in>
To: Jim Hughes <jfh@fs.fujitsu.com>; <ebxml-transport@lists.ebxml.org>
Sent: Monday, September 25, 2000 6:45 AM
Subject: RE: Reliable Messaging Spec v0-078


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>
> Hi Jim,
>
> Since this is my first communication with the ebXML group, I take this
> opportunity to congratulate ebXML team for excellent work being done. In a
> very recent Bill Gates talk in New Delhi, I asked him the question of
> Microsoft's position w.r.t ebXML, particularly in relation with Biztalk. I
> don't hink he has heard of ebXML, unless he was unable to understand my
> Indian accent ;-) All he said was that Interoperabilty is more important
> (agreed) and that XML will facilitate that (he was speaking on Microsoft's
> .NET strategy).
>
> I am reading Sep 22, 2000 spec for ebXML TRP Reliable Messaging. I feel that
> Sequence Numbering is NOT required for achieveing Reliablity at ebXML MSH
> layer. We must leverage reliablilty provided by the protocol themselves.
>
> Assumption for Reliable Messaging should only be that it should use a
> (reliable) connection oriented protocol (CONS like X.25, TCP - they are
> reliable, meaning "ordering" is guaranteed). However, this reliablity does
> not "guarantee" that the ebXML MSH has received the message, for which a
> "delivery confirmation" element/attribute may be added instead of sequence
> number. Whenever delivery confirmation element/attribute is set to YES, the
> receiving MSH will respond with ebXML message (just the ebXML header,
> confirming receipt). Note (Key Point) - on account of this message (delivery
> confirmation request message) riding on top of CONS, a response to this
> message would necessarily mean that all previously sent messages has been
> received. Infact, if the recieving MSH is sending back some data, this
> delivery confirmation response can be piggybacked. There is absolutely no
> need for persisting packets as suggested in the specs. This delivery
> request/response can be thought of as a ebXML-MSH-ping.
>
> Suggestion for Timeout/Retry is ok provided MSH-timeout is of greater
> interval than what it is at the tranport level (tranport-retries*timeout),
> otherwise it will cause grieve. If retires are to be done by MSH, then
> sequence numbering "may" be required for checking duplicates (not for the
> purpose of delivery confirmation), since for the sending transport layer,
> it's fresh data. In first phase of ebXML specs, I'll be tempted to drop this
> idea too - the logic being that if it can't be delivered even with
> transport's retries and timeout, then there is a good chance it won't be
> delivered with ebXML-MSH-retries as well. Sending application should simply
> abort and send the message at some other time.
>
> I am in favor of ebXML-MSH, but it should only be used to enable certain
> services (as glue) that CONS transport is supporting or to build something
> on top of what reliable transports support, if absolutely required. For
> example Q-ualified data (used for out of band signalling in X.25) can be
> used for signalling End of File for file transfers. Alternate to Q-data way
> of sending End of File would be to first send the size of file. The Delivery
> confirmation (D-bit) logic in X.25 protocols should be looked into. Also, of
> interest may be some other attributes like fast-select (sender sends
> connection request along with small data and the receiver sends back data
> along with call termination - verifone (I think) used to use this for credit
> card verification)
>
> However, if the goal is to provide Relibility over Unrealible connectionless
> protocols (CLNS - like UDP) then use of sequence numbering is ok. I suggest
> that X.25 protocol is looked at to see the problems assoicated with sequence
> numbering, especailly in case MSH is queuing data and not sending it to the
> application (see how RNR is used). My suggestion is that ebXML should not
> address reliability over unreliable protocols.
>
> Just a suggestion.
>
> Thank you and regards,
>
> Ajay
>
> Ajay K Sanghi
> Managing Director
>
> ABO Software Private Limited
> B102 Gulmohar Park, New Delhi 110049
> Tel: +91 11 6512816, 6512822 Fax: 6518873
> Website: http://www.abosoftware.com
> email: ajay@abosoftware.com
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Jim Hughes [mailto:jfh@fs.fujitsu.com]
> > Sent: Sunday, September 24, 2000 4:30 AM
> > To: ebxml-transport@lists.ebxml.org
> > Subject: Reliable Messaging Spec v0-078
> >
> >
> > Attached are Word and PDF copies of the latest version of the Reliable
> > Messaging Spec, for discussion on Wednesday in the F2F. Shimamura-san has
> > added much more detail on reliability issues, and of course the
> > earlier use
> > of Message Groups is now deleted for simplicity. Since there were many
> > changes, I deliberately did not mark changes in this document,
> > but you can
> > easily see them by using Word's compare utility against the
> > previous version.
> >
> > [Ralph, could you have some copies of the document available on Tuesday,
> > for those that might not have access to a printer before
> > travelling to Dallas?]
> >
> > Jim
> >