[Css-csts] Blocking on service instance or procedure basis?

[John Pietras]

Members of the CSTSWG - 
>From what I can see in the documentation, minutes, CCRs, etc.,
"blocking" is applies to all operations in a service instance. That is,
once a blocking operation is invoked, no other operation can be invoked
for the entire service instance until the return for that operation is
received by the invoker.

Did the CSTSWG consider applying blocking at the procedure level
instead? In other words, if a service instance has (for example) two
procedures, and a blocking operation is invoked as part of one of the
procedures, operations for the other procedure can be invoked regardless
of the state of that blocked procedure. 

There may be problems with such an approach that the WG has already
discussed, but I can see an advantage in that it would allow the
definition of services that combine procedures that are somehow related
(if for no other reason that they could share a single association), but
that do not necessarily require that all operations be performed
one-at-a-time.

>From a CSTS guidelines perspective, this would also help explain/justify
the difference between services that are built of more-complex
procedures that comprise multiple operations vs. ones built of simpler
procedures that comprise fewer operations. If a service needs to ensure
that one operation cannot be invoked while another is pending, those
operations need to be in the same procedure. Otherwise, use of multiple
(simpler) procedures could allow asynchronous procedure execution. 

As with all of my messages, if this has already been discussed within
the WG please accept my apologies for asking for a repetition of that
discussion.

Best regards, 
John

John Pietras
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