If a message is received by an intermediary node (say a web services portal)
and that message is forwarded to the utlimate receiver by the intermediary,
should a new set of WS-Addressing headers be used for the conversation
between the intermediary and utlimate receiver (i.e. particularly wsa:From,
wsa:ReplyTo) or should the intermediary simply forward the wsa headers from
the original request.

I'm not sure whether the relationship is stated as between the consumer and
ultimate receiver, or if the intermediary is significant.

Does the use of transport protocol have any effect (e.g. HTTP or non HTTP) ?

In once sense if the consumer includes a wsa:To and wsa:Action which are
logical addressess, which the portal is able to resolve to the correct
physical network address of the service, I guess the intermediary is not

WSE 2.0 provides an implementation of (of routing and referral) for the load
balancing model that does not require you to write any code in the SOAP
router. Everything is driven by configuration file settings that reflect the
routing model that you want to put in place. The WSE 2.0 toolkit is
generally good about saving you from writing code. However, if you are
implementing the chain routing model, or the content-based routing model,
then the intermediary services will need to update addressing headers on the
message to reflect the next destination in the chain. It sounds like your
application fits either the chain or the content-based routing models. In
general this should not be a big deal unless your communcations are secured.
In this case, the intermediaries must be configured to decrypt message as
appropriate, and they must also resign the message. This can cause headaches
if not handled properly. Read up on how WSE 2.0 handles not only routing and
referral, but at the core, addressing, so that you understand how the
intermediaries will interpret requests along the way.

Jeffrey Hasan, MCSD
President, Bluestone Partners, Inc.
-----------------------------------------------
Author of: Expert SOA in C# Using WSE 2.0 (APress, 2004)
http://www.bluestonepartners.com/soa.aspx


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