I suspect that we will end up by needing both Requesters and
Consumers as component definitions when there is a reason to
distinguish between a Consumer that has a formal binding to a
Service, such as the formal Consumer and Producer relationships via
SOAP that are built into WSRP, and one-offs who want a service,
whether it is a software component that can be incorporated into
their own systems, or a particular data value returned only once by
the service, which would cover a broad range of RESTful Requesters,
as well as the myriad Requesters that might use SourceForge, for
instance, to pick up a service class library. We might as well start
discussing, that hornet's nest while we are at the business of
Consumer v. Requester.
Ciao,
Rex
At 10:44 AM -0500 4/1/05, Matthew MacKenzie wrote:
>Umm, yeah :-)
>
>The great thing about "consume" is that it doesn't get into
>specifics about the pattern of consumption. The reference model
>need not care about how a service is consumed, just that it can be.
>
>-Matt
>john c hardin wrote:
>
>>A consumer recipient of a 'push' is still a consumer, even though
>>it hasn't invoked or requested a service at the time of delivery.
>>Obviously at some point it has opted-in to the subscription, but
>>not necessarily at the time of delivery.
>>
>><the lurker speaks...>
>>
>>lots of traffic on this list right now... very good stuff
>>john hardin
>>
>>Matthew MacKenzie wrote:
>>
>>>Same problem.
>>>
>>>You can consume a service without specifically invoking it.
>>>-Matt
>>>
>>>Chiusano Joseph wrote:
>>>
>>>>How about "Service Invokers"?
>>>>
>>>>Kind Regards,
>>>>Joseph Chiusano
>>>>Booz Allen Hamilton
>>>>Visit us online@ http://www.boozallen.com
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>-----Original Message-----
>>>>>From: Matthew MacKenzie [mailto:] Sent: Thursday,
>>>>>March 31, 2005 9:19 PM
>>>>>To: Thomas Erl
>>>>>Cc:
>>>>>Subject: Re: [soa-rm] Requesters vs. Consumers
>>>>>
>>>>>Consistency with other work aside, "request" strongly suggests
>>>>>how service consumption is initiated, and that is why I don't
>>>>>want to use it.
>>>>>
>>>>>Regards,
>>>>>Matt
>>>>>Thomas Erl wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>It's probably a good time to think about which term we
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>should use to
>>>>>>represent the potential element responsible for invoking or
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>initiating
>>>>>>a conversation with a service acting as the service provider.
>>>>>>Regardless of whether this becomes an "official" element within
>>>>>>our reference model, we will likely need to reference such an
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>element in
>>>>>>our documentation.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Below are some considerations we can take into account:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>- Both of the position papers submitted so far incorporate the
>>>>>>term "consumer". This term is also used in the ebSOA
>>>>>>specification.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>- The W3C Web Services Architecture document submitted by
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>Frank McCabe
>>>>>>uses the term "requester" and further qualifies it by suffixing
>>>>>>it with "entity" or "agent" to represent the owner and
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>software program
>>>>>>respectively. (Prior to the current version of the W3C
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>Working Note,
>>>>>>this document used the term "service requester" instead of
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>"requester
>>>>>
>>>>>>agent".)
>>>>>>
>>>>>>- The W3C Web Services Glossary does not provide a definition
>>>>>>for "consumer", but defines "requester agent" as follows: "A
>>>>>>software agent that wishes to interact with a provider agent in
>>>>>>order to request that a task be performed on behalf of its
>>>>>>owner - the requester entity."
>>>>>>
>>>>>>- The term "requester agent" is used in the W3C WSDL 2.0
>>>>>>specification, whereas "consumer" is used in the WSDL 1.1
>>>>>>version.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>- The definitions document submitted by Rebekah uses the term
>>>>>>"requester", most likely because the initial set of
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>definitions were
>>>>>>provided by Frank.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Given that we are seeking industry-wide acceptance of our
>>>>>>reference model, there may be a benefit to keeping our
>>>>>>terminology in
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>alignment
>>>>>>with terms already in use by established (albeit
>>>>>>implementation-specific) specifications. I personally have no
>>>>>>preference, but I do recommend we decide on one term and
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>then consider
>>>>>>adding a definition to our glossary. We may want to
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>leverage some of
>>>>>>the work performed by the W3C Working Group and decide
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>whether we also
>>>>>>need separate terms to distinguish owner from implementation.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>On a related note, we have not yet discussed the concept of
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>a service
>>>>>>or service agent assuming provider and requester/consumer
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>roles. Such
>>>>>>a concept would also affect our definitions.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Thomas
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
--
Rex Brooks
President, CEO
Starbourne Communications Design
GeoAddress: 1361-A Addison
Berkeley, CA 94702
Tel: 510-849-2309
