[soa-forum] Definitions of SOA

[Chris Harding <c.harding@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi -

As a further update, here is the definition of SOA that was presented at
The Open Group conference last week (and which we have shared with the
OMG).

SOA is an architectural style that supports service
orientation

?Service orientation
A way of a way of thinking in terms of services and service based
development and the outcomes that services bring

?Service
A logical representation of a repeatable business activity that has a
specified outcome (e.g., check customer credit; provide weather data,
consolidate drilling reports), is self-contained and maybe composed of
other Services. It is a black box to consumers of the Service

?Architectural Style
The combination of distinctive features in which Enterprise
Architecture is done, or expressed

?The SOA Architectural style?s distinctive features:
  ? Based on the design of the services comprising an
enterprise?s
     (or inter-enterprise) business processes.
Services mirror real-world
     business activity
  ? Service representation utilizes business descriptions.
Service
     representation requires providing its context
(including business
     process, goal, rule, policy, service interface
and service component)
     and service orchestration to implement
service
  ? Has unique requirements on infrastructure. Implementations
are
     recommended to use open standards, realize
interoperability and 
     location transparency.
  ? Implementations are environment specific, they are constrained
or
    enabled by context and must be described within their
context.
  ? Requires strong governance of service representation and
implementation
  ? Requires a ?Litmus Test", which determined a ?good
service?

At 20:31 04/05/2006, Cory Casanave wrote:

As an update from the OMG meeting last week, the SOA SIG adopted the following definition of SOA;

 

Service Oriented Architecture is an architectural style for a community of providers and consumers of services to achieve mutual value, that:

• Allows participants in the communities to work together with minimal co-dependence or technology dependence
• Specifies the contracts to which organizations, people and technologies must adhere in order to participate in the community
• Provides for business value and business processes to be realized by the community
• Allows for a variety of technology to be used to facilitate interactions within the community

 

 

The corresponding definition of service has not yet been finalized but the sense of the group is that there would be both a business/domain centric notion of service as well as an interaction focused definition.

 

In both cases this seems to fit well with the notion of SOA that is evolving in this group and in the SOA Demo.

 

Regards,

Cory Casanave
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Regards,

Chris
+++++

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Dr. Christopher J. Harding
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