FW: New AS2-Version Header

The UCC AS2 Interoperability test is in progress and some
concerns have been raised about backward compatibility to
previous test rounds.  Specifically, this round includes the
new EDIINT Compression functionality.  The following
discussion has been in progress.  We would like to include
the EDIINT list in this discussion and solicit your
comments.

Best Regards,

David Fischer
Drummond Group.

-----Original Message-----
From: David Fischer [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Wednesday, April 10, 2002 1:45 PM
To: AS2 Interoperability Test
Subject: New AS2-Version Header


We had another long discussion today about backward
compatibility.

We decided to look ahead to future tests and possible
concerns about backward compatibility to this test.  We
agreed to add a new header for this test round:

    AS2-Version: 1.1

Yesterday's test to all participants with this new header
did not reveal any failures.  Since no system was expecting
this header, and yet no one failed the message, this would
indicate that this header may be safely included in messages
sent to older systems.

This header will be included in the Final Interoperability
Report with an explanation that v1.1 means the sending
system supports all of the AS2 basic functionality and it
supports Compression as defined in the EDIINT Compression
Draft specification.  The version number MAY be incremented
in the future if the addition of new functionality warrants
such an action.

It will be REQUIRED, for this round and in the future, that
this header be included on any sent message, and any
returned MDN (but not with a single line HTTP status
response).  Receiving systems MUST NOT fail due to the
absence of this header.  The absence of this new header
would nominally indicate a system from a previous test
round.  At this time, the presence of this header is
informative in nature only and the receiving system may or
may not utilize this information at the discretion of the
implementer.

Before this new header can be added to the AS2
specification, we will need to request discussion from the
EDIINT list.  This header would be included in the AS2
specification with the value of:

    AS2-Version: 1.0

This header would also be inserted into the EDIINT
Compression specification with the value of:

    AS2-Version: 1.1

This header would be for AS2 systems only and would not be
included when Compression is performed on an AS1 message.

Does this meet with everyone's approval?

Regards,

David Fischer
Drummond Group.