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## File: $Id: README,v 1.2 2006/12/08 20:22:43 spadkins Exp $
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1. What is the Business-Travel-OTA distribution?

The Business-Travel-OTA distribution is a set of 
tools for handling OTA-compliant (Open Travel Alliance) messages.

The OTA publishes an evolving set of XML schemas (*.xsd) twice a year
which define a set of
travel-industry related XML messages.  These messages are organized as
Request/Response (RQ/RS) pairs.

The OTA does not mandate that a certain protocol be used for the
exchange of these messages.  However, it has specified three ways that
have been commonly used: simple HTTP POST, SOAP 1.1, and SOAP 1.2.

This distribution provides (or will provide):

 * a test client,
 * a test server,
 * a framework for client and server development,
 * a set of tools for managing XML message libraries and XML schema libraries,
 * a set of tools for benchmarking and volume testing.

The modules within should be understood from the perspective of either
client or the server.

The client knows about many servers but submits any specific
message to a specific Server belonging to a Partner using the
appropriate Transport protocol.

The server receives a message from a client, determines the Partner
it comes from from protocol-level information or information in the
message, and executes the message (via an appropriate Dispatcher),
causing an appropriate response message to be generated and returned
to the client.

 Business::Travel::OTA::RemoteServer - An OTA remote server belongs to an
   OTA Partner.  There are very few OTA Servers which are accessible to the
   public.  They are mostly secure servers which only established business
   partners are allowed to access.  Each Server is associated with one Partner,
   using one Transport protocol to exchange messages.

 Business::Travel::OTA::Partner - An OTA Partner may have several servers
   (i.e. test, production), all of which obey the same rules, support
   the same messages, do security and session management the same way,
   and require the same usage profiles of the supported messages.

 Business::Travel::OTA::Transport - Each possible Transport protocol
   is a way whereby a Request/Response message pair may be exchanged.
   
 Business::Travel::OTA::Client
 Business::Travel::OTA::RemoteServer
 Business::Travel::OTA::LocalServer
 Business::Travel::OTA::Partner
 Business::Travel::OTA::Transport
 Business::Travel::OTA::Conversation
 Business::Travel::OTA::UseCase
 XML::Toolset

2. How do I install it?

To install this module, cd to the directory that contains this README
file and type the following (as usual).

   perl Makefile.PL
   (or) perl Makefile.PL PREFIX=$PREFIX
   make
   make test
   make install