Assumptions about WSDL 1.1 MEPs

I am wondering if the current BPEL draft is making 
an incorrect assumption about WSDL 1.1 MEPs. The assumption that the spec 
seems to make is that a WSDL operation with Request/Response MEP will 
necessarily have the request and response in the same network connection, 
regardless of the binding. My questions are:

1. Is the spec making this assumption? (I think it 
is.)

2. Is this assumption correct? (I think it is 
not.)

 

My reading this assumption in to the spec comes 
largely from Section 6.5. The current draft contains the following 
paragraph, where I interpret "synchronous" to mean "in the same network 
connection":

 

The example makes the implicit assumption that 
the customer request can be processed in a reasonable amount of time, justifying 
the requirement that the invoker wait for a synchronous response (because this 
service is offered as a request-response operation). When that assumption does 
not hold, the interaction with the customer is better modeled as a pair of 
asynchronous message exchanges. In that case, the "sendPurchaseOrder" operation 
is a one-way operation and the asynchronous response is sent by invoking a 
second one-way operation on a customer "callback" interface. In addition to 
changing the signature of "sendPurchaseOrder" and defining a new portType to 
represent the customer callback interface, two modifications need to be made in 
the preceding example to support an asynchronous response to the customer. 
First, the partner link type "purchasingLT" that represents the process-customer 
connection needs to include a second role ("customer") listing the customer 
callback portType. Second, the <reply> activity in the process needs to be 
replaced by an <invoke> on the customer callback operation. 

 

I don't think you can correctly infer whether or 
not a request/response pair will be on a single network connection based solely 
on an abstract WSDL. If I'm either misreading the 
spec or misunderstanding WSDL, could someone 
clarify this for me? If not, I'll submit this as an issue to be resolved. 
Thanks.

 

Jim Clune
Parasoft 
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