Conversation Management Protocol in WebLogic Integration October 15, 2001 Sanjay Dalal ([e-mail]) BEA Systems, Inc.

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Conversation Management ProtocolinWebLogic
Integration October 15, 2001Sanjay Dalal
(sanjay_at_bea.com) BEA Systems, Inc.
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Outline

• Business Transactions over the Web
• Conversation Management Protocol of WebLogic
  Integration

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Supply Chain Business Transaction Example
Manufacturer
Supplier
Shipper
Check product price
Send product price
Place Order
Wait for order
Send Invoice
Wait for Invoice
Check truck schedule
Arrange shipping
Book order
Time
Decline customer

Commit
Reserve shipping
Business message
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Characteristics of Business Transactions on the
Web

• Comprised of complex business processes
• Span multiple enterprises (trading partners)
• Modeled as agreed upon processes within the
  context of trading partner agreements
• Long running (minutes, hours, days,)
• Consists of multiple business message exchanges
• Uses unreliable communication channel HTTP/S
• Global business transaction is dependent on the
  outcome of many local transactions
• Isolation is relaxed, compensation preferred over
  rollback

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Requirements for protocol

• Management/coordination of long-running business
  transactions across business processes of
  different trading partners
• Reliable business transaction management
  (coordination) protocol over the Web
• Outcome is reliably conveyed to all participants
• Survive network and node failures
• Efficient protocol (less number of messages) over
  the web

-gtgtgtConversation Management Protocol (CMP)
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B2B stack
Collaboration
ebXML, BPML
ConversationManagement
CMP
ebXML TRP, SOAP...
Messaging
Security
SSL, S2ML, PKCS 7
Transport
HTTP, SMTP/POP, FTP
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Conversation Lifecycle

• Start a conversation
• Send message in a conversation
• Receive message in a conversation
• Implicitly join a conversation
• Leave conversation
• Terminate a conversation
• Success
• Failure
• Timeout

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Conversation Lifecycle
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Roles

• Initiator
• Initiator is a trading partner, who creates the
  conversation
• Sends the first business message
• Terminates the conversation
• Participant
• Participant is a trading partner who is enlisted
  in the conversation when it receives the first
  business message inside the conversation
• Can leave the conversation
• Coordinator
• Main coordinator
• Maintains a list of subordinate coordinators
• Drives termination protocol
• Subordinate coordinator
• Maintains a list of participants
• Participates in the termination protocol

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Summary

• Advantages
• Simple protocol
• Less number of messages
• Fewer roles
• Suitable where single party dictates outcome of a
  transaction, e.g. public/private exchanges

• Missing
• Vote from participants
• Explicit contracts
• Implicit prepare
• Implicit enlist/enrol
• Initiator does not see status (in or out of
  transaction) of participant

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Status

• Available in WebLogic Integration product
  (http//edocs.bea.com/wlintegration/v2_1/)
• Accepted by OASIS Business Transaction Committee
  (http//www.oasis-open.org/committees/business-tra
  nsactions/) on March 8, 2001 as proposal from BEA
• http//lists.oasis-open.org/archives/business-tran
  saction/200103/zip00000.zip
• Note The name of the protocol was changed from
  Conversation Management Protocol to Business
  Transaction Protocol in the proposal.