###################################################################### ## File: $Id: README,v 1.2 2006/12/08 20:22:43 spadkins Exp $ ######################################################################

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