Re: Gateways

On Tue, Oct 08, 2002 at 10:41:49AM -0700, Ugo Corda wrote:
> >> Yes, and taking that at the SOAP level, a SOAP node could receive SOAP
> >> messages traveling over HTTP and forward them to another SOAP node over
> >> SMTP. Is that still a gateway?
> >
> >If it terminates the message, yes, I'd say so.
> 
> Well, I can probably look at it either way. The first SOAP message
> terminates and a new SOAP message is generated to go to the next node. Or
> it's the same SOAP message, just going through an intermediary.

I think the best way to look at it, is that it may be the same sequence
of bytes (or not), but it's definitely a new message.

Ok, so to take Mike's cue, it sounds like we're probably agreeing, and
I don't hear other people chiming in, so how about this for the
glossary;

Gateway; a node that terminates a message on an inbound interface with
the intent of presenting it through an outbound interface as a new
message.  Due to possible mismatches between the inbound and outbound
interfaces, a message may have some or all of its meaning lost during
the conversion process.  Note; gateways may or may not be SOAP nodes,
and gateways that are SOAP nodes are not SOAP intermediaries.

> P.S. All this reminds me of the particle/wave duality in quantum mechanics,
> where it is one or the other depending on how you look at it  :-).

Yep. 8-)

MB
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Mark Baker, CTO, Idokorro Mobile (formerly Planetfred)
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