SIP-025 — Transport and Runtime Mechanism Exclusion

Go to Annex C: Requirements

The proposed Reference Architecture SHALL NOT define transport protocols, message-exchange frameworks, or runtime communication mechanisms.

Transport protocols, message-exchange frameworks, and runtime communication mechanisms are platform-specific realization choices. Incorporating them into the Reference Architecture would constrain portability, limit implementation alternatives, and risk duplicating existing standards.

SIP-RA must define architectural interactions and information exchanges independently of the technologies used to carry them. Implementations and platform-specific profiles may map those abstractions to appropriate transport and runtime mechanisms.

The Submission satisfies this requirement when the proposed Reference Architecture:

1. Defines interactions and information exchanges independently of a specific transport protocol
2. Avoids requiring a particular message-exchange framework
3. Avoids defining a new runtime communication mechanism
4. Permits architectural interactions to be realized using multiple transport technologies
5. Distinguishes platform-specific mappings and examples from the normative architecture
6. Avoids making conformance dependent on a particular transport or messaging product
7. References applicable existing standards rather than redefining their transport behavior

This exclusion does not prevent SIP-RA from defining abstract interaction constructs, information-flow semantics, attachment points, Interface Contracts, or requirements that a transport realization must satisfy.

A Submission may provide nonnormative mappings to protocols or frameworks to demonstrate that the architecture can be realized.