Transaction Internet Protocol (tip)

This Working Group Did Not Meet

NOTE: This charter is a snapshot of the 42nd IETF Meeting in Chicago, Illinois. It may now be out-of-date. Last Modified: 07-Apr-98

Chair(s):

Jim Lyon <jimlyon@microsoft.com>
Keith Evans <keith@loc252.tandem.com>

Applications Area Director(s):

Keith Moore <moore@cs.utk.edu>
Patrik Faltstrom <paf@swip.net>

Applications Area Advisor:

Keith Moore <moore@cs.utk.edu>

Mailing Lists:

General Discussion:tip@tandem.com
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Description of Working Group:

The task of the TIP working group is to develop an Internet standard two-phase commit protocol specification, to enable heterogeneous Transaction Managers to agree on the outcome of a distributed transaction, based upon the Internet-Draft TIP protocol specification <draft-lyon-itp-nodes-01.txt. [Note that since <draft-lyon-itp-nodes-01.txt references a modified version of the Session Control Protocol (SCP), the TIP WG will also be responsible for progression of SCP to Proposed Internet Standard.]

In many applications where different nodes cooperate on some work, there is a need to guarantee that the work happens atomically. That is, each node must reach the same conclusion as to whether the work is to be completed (committed or aborted), even in the face of failures. This behaviour is achieved via the use of distributed transactions, employing a two-phase commit protocol (2-pc). The use of distributed transactions greatly simplifies distributed applications programming, since the number of possible outcomes is reduced from many to two, and failure recovery is performed automatically by the transaction service (Transaction Manager).

Key requirements to be met are, 1) the 2-pc protocol be independent of the application-to-application communications protocol, such that it may be used with any application protocol (especially HTTP), and 2) the 2-pc protocol be simple to implement and have a small working footprint (to encourage ubiquitous implementation and offer wide applicability).

The first work item of the group is to develop a requirements document, which describes at least one complete scenario in which the TIP protocol is intended to be used, and describes the requirements on the protocol with regards to:

- Simplicity - Overhead/Performance - Security

The protocols developed by this working group will be analyzed for potential sources of security breach. Identified threats will be removed from the protocol if possible, and documented and guarded against in other cases.

The Internet-Draft document <draft-lyon-itp-nodes-01.txt is to be used as the input base document for the development of this 2-pc protocol specification.

Due to extreme differences in the approach, the group will not consider the CORBA OTS specification as a solution to its requirements.

Goals and Milestones:

Jul 97		Submit Versions 2 of the Session Control Protocol (SCP) document as an Internet-Draft.
Jul 97		Solicit comments on TIP and SCP Internet-Drafts.
Aug 97		Resolve all comments received on TIP and SCP Internet-Drafts, and submit revisions.
Aug 97		Meet at Munich IETF.
Sep 97		Submit updated versions ofd TIP, SCP, and Requirements Document as Internet-Drafts.
Oct 97		Submit final version of TIP and SCP to IESG for consideration as Proposed Standards. Also submit requirements document for consideration as an Informational RFC.

Internet-Drafts:

· Using the Transaction Internet Protocol (TIP) with HTTP

Request For Comments:

RFC	Status	Title
RFC2371	PS	Transaction Internet Protocol Version 3.0
RFC2372		Transaction Internet Protocol - Requirements and Supplemental Information