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| <document> |
| <header> |
| <title>WebServices - Axis</title> |
| </header> |
| <body> |
| <section> |
| <title>WebServices - Axis - Summary of Apache/Microsoft Interoperability Meeting</title> |
| <p> |
| Summary of Apache/Microsoft Interoperability Meeting<br/> |
| March 12-14, 2001 |
| </p> |
| <p> |
| From Apache: Glen Daniels, Jim Stearns, Doug Davis<br/> |
| From MS: (main contacts) Keith Ballinger, Andrew Layman, Eric Andrae |
| </p> |
| <p> |
| Most of the 3 days were spent testing Apache SOAP v2.1 and Axis against |
| the 5 different versions of SOAP MS has (one being an IE client). |
| Since Axis doesn't have serialization support yet (just Strings) it |
| was limited in what it could do, but for those simple tests that |
| did NOOPs or tested Strings it did ok as a client and a server (just |
| a few minor tweaks were needed). |
| </p> |
| <p> |
| Apache SOAP v2.1 did much better. There were a few bugs (and holes) |
| that were discovered but Glen was able to track them down and, I think, |
| fix all of them. He's in the process of trying to see if the |
| fixes can be integrated back into the cvs tree, but is unsure about |
| one of the fix's impact on the MIME support - but we'll see. |
| </p> |
| <p> |
| MS has 5 different versions of SOAP and they've been doing some of |
| their own interoperability testing internally so I think they were |
| able to flush out most(all) of their differences before we got there. |
| However, we did manage to find a bug (or two?) in their code 8-) |
| but overall they had things pretty well covered. |
| </p> |
| <p> |
| For better or worse, MS is very WSDL dependent. If the industry is |
| headed down the path of basically requiring WSDL then Apache might |
| need to do so as well. |
| </p> |
| <p> |
| We had two strategy meetings in which we discussed how to improve |
| interoperability testing/conformance in the future, not just between |
| Apache and MS but everyone. We decided to set-up a consortium in |
| which different SOAP implementations can join and test their version |
| of SOAP against the others in the group. The main purpose of the |
| group would be to focus attention on interoperability issues and not |
| necessarily prove conformance to the SOAP spec. While we will have |
| testcases that we "believe" test some aspects of conformance we can |
| not be the defining authority on who is, or is not, spec compliant. |
| All we can do is pretty much help people say that their SOAP code |
| can, or can not, play nicely with others in the group. That being |
| said, there are some definite MUSTs and MUST NOTs in the spec and |
| we will have some tests that test those so we'll be walking a fine |
| line. |
| </p> |
| <p> |
| We will also group tests based on sections of the SOAP spec. Not |
| everyone will want to implement all sections of the spec but will |
| still want to test conformance based on what they have implemented. |
| </p> |
| <p> |
| To help this "consortium" we're going to set-up a web site |
| (Jim has already reserved wsinterop.org and soapinterop.org) where |
| people can post their testcases and test results. We also talked about |
| having pointers to "live" servers that people can hit to test their |
| SOAP implementations. It wasn't decided how Apache will work this. |
| <br/><b>****TODO*****</b><br/> |
| We need to get someone to volunteer to set this up/host it. |
| </p> |
| <p> |
| Along the lines of getting interoperability, we discussed showcasing |
| how nicely we're all playing together. 8-) In particular we |
| discussed having a live demo at a conference (maybe NetWorld Interop |
| in May) where people can hook up their machines in our network of |
| computers and join in "the game". "The game" will consist of a fairly |
| simple maze type of game - each server will own a certain number of |
| rooms and clients will be able to walk from room to room examining, |
| and placing, objects in each one. We'll define a set of base SOAP |
| interfaces that people will need to implement and if they do then |
| they should be able hook-in their server and extend the maze. |
| </p> |
| <p> |
| Glen is working on the write-up of the overall idea and will |
| distribute it once it's done. In order to help things along we |
| agreed to try to have another F2F around the end of April where we |
| will all get together in a room to hash-out the details of the |
| game/interfaces and to actually code it up. I (Dug) have agreed to |
| see if IBM will host it in Raleigh. Glen is going to see if |
| Allaire (aka Macromedia) will be willing to work on the GUI that |
| the main-server will use to display the status of the game. |
| </p> |
| </section> |
| </body> |
| </document> |