Peter Madziak wrote: > Also, from a pure EAI/Messaging perspective, many of Hohpe & Woolfe's > EAI patterns touch on this, for instance: > http://www.eaipatterns.com/CorrelationIdentifier.html > <http://www.eaipatterns.com/CorrelationIdentifier.html>
The use of a sequence number, unique identifier, serial-number etc, has a long and proven history in all aspects of our lifes. Something that uniquely identifies what you are looking at, has always made it possible to more clearly understand what is implied. There are, of course certain things that you have to understand about the implications of how that value is introduced into the "system" and how it is managed. Remember the TCP sequence number guessing attacks on the internet that created massive denial of service issues? What happens if a counterfeit id appears in the system? Who wins? The first, the last, or which do you consider to the the definitive instance? SSL tunnels and many other forms of authenticated flows help facilitate some level of "correct" in many types of systems. Gregg Wonderly
