Dear all, After the discussion in the GRAAP group concerning the extension of the AgreementState port type for the negotiation protocol, it turned out that this is not necessary. It is still possible to define substates for the states defined in the WS-Agreement recommendation. The important structures for this are listed below: <xs:simpleType name="AgreementStateDefinition"> <xs:restriction base="xs:string"> <xs:enumeration value="Pending"/> <xs:enumeration value="PendingAndTerminating"/> <xs:enumeration value="Observed"/> <xs:enumeration value="ObservedAndTerminating"/> <xs:enumeration value="Rejected"/> <xs:enumeration value="Complete"/> <xs:enumeration value="Terminated"/> </xs:restriction> </xs:simpleType> AgreementStateDefinition defines the WS-Agreement states as an enumeration. <xs:complexType name="AgreementStateType"> <xs:complexContent> <xs:extension base="wsag:InnerAgreementStateType"> <xs:sequence> <xs:element name="State" type="wsag:AgreementStateDefinition"/> </xs:sequence> </xs:extension> </xs:complexContent> </xs:complexType> <xs:complexType name="InnerAgreementStateType"> <xs:sequence> <xs:any minOccurs="0" namespace="##other" processContents="lax"/> </xs:sequence> </xs:complexType> The AgreementStateType defines one element State that can take a value defined in AgreementStateDefinition. AgreementStateType also extends InnerAgreementStateType, which allows extending AgreementStateType with an abritary XML document. Therefore, it is possible to add a document in the WS-Agreement-Negotiation namespace, which defines e.g. a substate for an AgreementState. How these extensions (e.g. substates) are defined, is then part of the WS-Agreement-Negotiation specification. However, this approach would be a fully compliant and compatible way to introduce substates in WS-Agreement-Negotiation with respect to the base WS-Agreement specification. Best regards, Oliver ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Oliver Wäldrich Fraunhofer-Institute for Algorithms and Scientific Computing (SCAI) Schloss Birlinghoven, D-53754 Sankt Augustin, Germany Tel: +49 2241 14 2830; Fax: +49 2241 14 42830 CoreGRID Network of Excellence www.coregrid.net Institute on Resource Management and Scheduling www.coregrid.net/irms