W3C

Web Service Management: Service Life Cycle

W3C Working Group Note 11 February 2004

This version:
http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/NOTE-wslc-20040211/
Latest version:
http://www.w3.org/TR/wslc/
Editors:
Hao He, The Thomson Corporation
Mark Potts, Talking Blocks, Inc.
Igor Sedukhin, Computer Associates

Abstract

This document describes the life cycle of a Web service, and of the processing of a request by a Web service.

Status of this Document

This section describes the status of this document at the time of its publication. Other documents may supersede this document. A list of current W3C publications and the latest revision of this technical report can be found in the W3C technical reports index at http://www.w3.org/TR/.

This is a public W3C Working Group Note produced by the Web Services Architecture Working Group, which is part of the Web Services Activity.

This document captures work done by the management task force of the W3C Web Services Architecture Working Group. The Working Group felt this work was valuable but beyond the scope needed in the Web Services Architecture document.

Discussion of this document is invited on the public mailing list [email protected] (public archives).

Patent disclosures relevant to this specification may be found on the Working Group's patent disclosure page.

Publication as a Working Group Note does not imply endorsement by the W3C Membership. This is a draft document and may be updated, replaced or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to cite this document as other than work in progress. Other documents may supersede this document.

Service Life Cycle

A service life cycle is expressed in the state transition diagrams below. There are two separate transition paths: service itself and request processing.

The terminology used is the one defined in the Web Services Glossary.

Service

To be used, a service must be realized by a concrete provider agent.

Life cycle of a service

States

Transitions

State Transition Table

Action

From State

To State

Sub-State

Comment

Activate

None - SOL

UP

IDLE

Instantiated and able to accept requests

Activate

None - SOL

DOWN

STOPPED

Instantiated but not able to accept requests 

Passivate

UP

None - EOL

-o-

Destroyed

Passivate

DOWN

None - EOL

-o-

Destroyed

Up Substates

Up substrates

States

Transitions

State Transition Table

Action

Super State

Current State

End State

Comment

Accepts Request

UP

IDLE

BUSY

Currently PROCESSING requests

Completes all processing

UP

BUSY

IDLE

All requests completed (either FAILED or PROCESSED)

Down Substates

Down substrates

States

Transitions

State Transition Table

Action

Super State

Current State

End State

Comment

Manual Administration

UP

IDLE or BUSY

STOPPED

No longer accepting requests because of administrative action

Malfunction

UP

IDLE or BUSY

CRASHED

Malfunction in any UP state

Accepts Request

UP

BUSY

SATURATED

No longer accepting requests due to exhausted resources

Administrate

DOWN

CRASHED or SATURATED

STOPPED

No longer accepting requests because of administrative action

Processed or Failed Request(s)

DOWN

SATURATED

BUSY

Resources available after being exhausted such that requests can again be accepted

Recovery

DOWN

CRASHED

IDLE

Accepting requests again after a malfunction

Restart

DOWN

CRASHED or STOPPED

IDLE

Accepting requests again after being restarted

Manual Administration

DOWN

CRASHED

STOPPED

No longer CRASHED but not accepting requests

Request Processing

Life cycle of a request processing

States

Transitions

State Transition Table

Action

Current State

End State

Comment

Accepts Request

       -o-

REQUEST RECEIVED

Request received by the Service

Process the Request

REQUEST RECEIVED

PROCESSING

Commence execution of service function based on request received

Completion of processing

PROCESSING

PROCESSED

Successful completion of function executed based on the request received

Failure in processing

PROCESSING

FAILED

Unsuccessful completion of function executed based on the request received

Acknowledgements

This document was authored by the management task force of the Web Services Architecture Working Group: Zulah Eckert (HP), Hao He (Thomson), Yin-Leng Husband (HP), Heather Kreger (IBM), Mark Potts (Talking Blocks), Igor Sedukhin (CA).

This document is a product of the Web Services Architecture Working Group.

Members of the Working Group are (at the time of writing, and by alphabetical order): Geoff Arnold (Sun Microsystems, Inc.), Mukund Balasubramanian (Infravio, Inc.), Mike Ballantyne (EDS), Abbie Barbir (Nortel Networks), David Booth (W3C), Mike Brumbelow (Apple), Doug Bunting (Sun Microsystems, Inc.), Greg Carpenter (Nokia), Tom Carroll (W. W. Grainger, Inc.), Alex Cheng (Ipedo), Michael Champion (Software AG), Martin Chapman (Oracle Corporation), Ugo Corda (SeeBeyond Technology Corporation), Roger Cutler (ChevronTexaco), Jonathan Dale (Fujitsu), Suresh Damodaran (Sterling Commerce(SBC)), James Davenport (MITRE Corporation), Paul Denning (MITRE Corporation), Gerald Edgar (The Boeing Company), Shishir Garg (France Telecom), Hugo Haas (W3C), Hao He (The Thomson Corporation), Dave Hollander (Contivo), Yin-Leng Husband (Hewlett-Packard Company), Mario Jeckle (DaimlerChrysler Research and Technology), Heather Kreger (IBM), Sandeep Kumar (Cisco Systems Inc), Hal Lockhart (OASIS), Michael Mahan (Nokia), Francis McCabe (Fujitsu), Michael Mealling (VeriSign, Inc.), Jeff Mischkinsky (Oracle Corporation), Eric Newcomer (IONA), Mark Nottingham (BEA Systems), David Orchard (BEA Systems), Bijan Parsia (MIND Lab), Adinarayana Sakala (IONA), Waqar Sadiq (EDS), Igor Sedukhin (Computer Associates), Hans-Peter Steiert (DaimlerChrysler Research and Technology), Katia Sycara (Carnegie Mellon University), Bryan Thompson (Hicks & Associates, Inc.), Sinisa Zimek (SAP).

Previous members of the Working Group were: Assaf Arkin (Intalio, Inc.), Daniel Austin (W. W. Grainger, Inc.), Mark Baker (Idokorro Mobile, Inc. / Planetfred, Inc.), Tom Bradford (XQRL, Inc.), Allen Brown (Microsoft Corporation), Dipto Chakravarty (Artesia Technologies), Jun Chen (MartSoft Corp.), Alan Davies (SeeBeyond Technology Corporation), Glen Daniels (Macromedia), Ayse Dilber (AT&T), Zulah Eckert (Hewlett-Packard Company), Colleen Evans (Sonic Software), Chris Ferris (IBM), Daniela Florescu (XQRL Inc.), Sharad Garg (Intel), Mark Hapner (Sun Microsystems, Inc.), Joseph Hui (Exodus/Digital Island), Michael Hui (Computer Associates), Nigel Hutchison (Software AG), Marcel Jemio (DISA), Mark Jones (AT&T), Timothy Jones (CrossWeave, Inc.), Tom Jordahl (Macromedia), Jim Knutson (IBM), Steve Lind (AT&T), Mark Little (Arjuna), Bob Lojek (Intalio, Inc.), Anne Thomas Manes (Systinet), Jens Meinkoehn (T-Nova Deutsche Telekom Innovationsgesellschaft), Nilo Mitra (Ericsson), Don Mullen (TIBCO Softwar.e, Inc.), Himagiri Mukkamala (Sybase, Inc.), Joel Munter (Intel), Henrik Frystyk Nielsen (Microsoft Corporation), Duane Nickull (XML Global Technologies), David Noor (Rogue Wave Software), Srinivas Pandrangi (Ipedo), Kevin Perkins (Compaq), Mark Potts (Talking Blocks, Inc), Fabio Riccardi (XQRL, Inc.), Don Robertson (Documentum), Darran Rolls (Waveset Technologies, Inc.), Krishna Sankar (Cisco Systems Inc), Jim Shur (Rogue Wave Software), Patrick Thompson (Rogue Wave Software), Steve Vinoski (IONA), Scott Vorthmann (TIBCO Software, Inc.), Jim Webber (Arjuna), Prasad Yendluri (webMethods, Inc.), Jin Yu (MartSoft Corp.) .