The Internet stretches traditional strict transaction processing concepts in several directions. First, transactions spanning multiple independent organizations may need to address enforcement of pairwise legal agreements rather than "global" data consistency. Second, a new transaction processing paradigm is required that supports different views of "unit of business" for all participants, i.e., service providers as well as end consumers. There may be several related interactions between any two interacting parties dispersed in time creating a "long running conversation". Hence, persistent records of business actions need to be kept. Additionally, some actions and groups of actions may be cancelable (however, this may not mean that all effects are undone, e.g., non refundable payments). Finally, the greater variability in response time for network computing creates a need for asynchronous and event driven processing, in which correct handling of reissued and cancelled requests is critical. This talk presents the COYOTE approach: an application development style and a monitor environment for supporting long running network applications and extended transaction models. I will also provide a high level design for this monitor using either a classical TP monitor or Object services and describe briefly how network applications can be developed in this environment.

Joint work with Francis Parr.