Hi Ken, (01)
With references back to Brad's granularity discussion, I still find the
idea of the W3C WSA's abstract and concrete services very useful in
practice when you're trying to address the ideas of interoperability,
QoS and functionality vs. a particular implementation of that
functionality. I'm not that big on a lot of the rest of the document,
but I think this is very good once you are talking about implementing a
business service as an IT deliverable. (02)
However, I don't think "SOA service" is the best name for what you've
described. I'm not too sure what is at the moment, but I'll give it a
bit more thought. Off the top of my head, maybe "IT service" or
"technology service" or something like that. Like I said, I'll give it
more thought, but I don't think there's a clear enough link from "SOA
service" to "IT artifact" based on many of the underlying assumptions in
people's heads about what SOA means to them, based on where they are and
what they're trying to do with it. (03)
I think it's also fair to say that things like QoS metrics can also be
applied to people-oriented or at least interactive human/machine
business processes as well, e.g. "The turnaround for a customer callback
after receiving a support request email must be within 1 hour", so I'm
not sure that's a sufficient enough differentiator either. In the above
case, if there's not enough people to support the volume of calls,
you're going to add more people, not technology to improve the QoS of
the business service. I know you know this, but I think it's important
to reiterate. (04)
However, I do agree that there needs to be a good way to determine where
the line is between the abstract and the concrete IT implmentation based
on some agreed definition. I'm just not sure that you'll get much
traction with "SOA service". (05)
I haven't had a chance to look at the ontology yet, but I hope to get a
chance to do this over the Christmas break. (06)
Cheers, (07)
ast (08)
On Fri, 2006-12-22 at 00:49, Ken Laskey wrote:
> One thing not addressed in the OASIS RM is to specifically
> differentiate between a "business service" and a "SOA service". I
> have a draft white paper on this that I never quite get around to
> finishing but in general it appears useful:
>
> - to use the OASIS RM idea of a SOA service to provide access to a
> capability, and
> - to relate the business service with the capability to which the SOA
> service provides access.
>
> In particular,
>
> A business service is the functionality invoked in using a capability
> designed and implemented to address certain needs, i.e. the solution
> to a business problem. It implies actions. The real world effects of
> using a business service are changes to the public aspects and/or the
> user’s private aspects of the world in a way that has some positive
> impact on those needs. The user may not be aware of private impacts
> on others.
>
> A SOA service is an IT artifact (i.e. a thing) that makes possible the
> efficient connectivity between consumer needs and provider
> capabilities. It provides a mechanism to access the capability of a
> business service and to realize some subset of the real world effects
> gained by interacting with the SOA service to access the business
> service. As implied, the SOA service is not required to enable access
> to all of the underlying capability’s potential real world effects. In
> operational use, the SOA service is the entity that must conform to
> such things as quality of service (QoS) metrics and the thing to be
> fixed if these metrics are not met.
>
>
> Comments welcome.
>
> Ken
>
>
> On Dec 21, 2006, at 9:20 AM, Brad Cox, Ph.D. wrote:
> > > definitions of SOA are currently broadening to the point where
> > they
> > > are not particularly useful any more.
> >
> > The same debate raged in the 90's as to the 'real' meaning of
> > 'object'. Of course the term is just as ambigious in everyday life
> > where the term originated and where it means quite different things
> > at different levels of granularity (subatomic, atomic, molecular,
> > biological, astronomical, etc).
> >
> > Seems to me we could add a lot of clarity by specifying what level
> > of granularity "service" is being applied to. The article applies it
> > at the enterprise level so service = an organizational capabilitiy.
> >
> > Several levels below that is the application level, where it means a
> > network-resident computer program; the meaning most technical folk
> > have in mind. Below that are the POJO objects from which
> > applications are usually composed these days (locally accessible
> > objects that are not on the network).
> >
> > PS: I once tried to get traction on applying hardware engineering
> > terminology in software but that never caught on. Gate-level objects
> > = plain C functions, chip-level = C++/Java objects, card-level = SOA
> > services, and so forth. So it goes...
> >
> >
> >
> > Joshua Lieberman wrote:
> > > Dr. Harding,
> > > Your interest in feedback for an SOA ontology is appreciated, but
> > > taking a quick look at the definition of SOA on which it is based,
> > > I have to raise the question why it includes only two of the three
> > > legs on which service-based architecture was developed. The role
> > > of service discovery, trading, and matching is conspicuously
> > > absent. Indeed, this makes the ontology perfectly suitable for
> > > modeling any application stovepipe and fails to explain why
> > > efforts at interoperability, in fact at the information-hiding
> > > aspects of services at all, are important.
> > > It would certainly be very interesting to learn whether this
> > > omission is deliberate or represents an intermediate stage of
> > > ontology development. It might also be a good topic for SICoP
> > > discussion. There is some question whether definitions of SOA are
> > > currently broadening to the point where they are not particularly
> > > useful any more.
> > > Regards,
> > > Joshua Lieberman
> > > Principal, Traverse Technologies Inc.
> > > mailto:jlieberman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> > > tel +1 (617) 395-7766
> > > fax: +1 (815) 717-981
> > > On Dec 21, 2006, at 5:16 AM, Chris Harding wrote:
> > > > Hello -
> > > >
> > > > The Open Group is developing a formal ontology for SOA, and we
> > > > have
> > > > now reached the stage where we have a draft that we would like
> > > > to
> > > > share with other organizations that are working on SOA, in order
> > > > to
> > > > obtain feedback and comment. We believe that a common ontology
> > > > for
> > > > SOA can be a very valuable resource for everyone to use, and we
> > > > therefore wish to receive input from as wide a constituency as
> > > > possible.
> > > >
> > > > I think that this will be of interest to the SICoP as well as
> > > > the
> > > > SOACoP, and we would appreciate input from both groups. This
> > > > call for
> > > > input is going to both lists, and we would appreciate comments
> > > > from
> > > > all members of them, either directly to me
> > > > (c.harding@xxxxxxxxxxxxx)
> > > > or to one or both of the lists. (Comments to both lists will
> > > > generate
> > > > the best debate!)
> > > >
> > > > The current draft is draft 0.6 and is available from our web
> > > > page at
> > > > http://www.opengroup.org/projects/soa-ontology/ together with
> > > > some
> > > > simple example ontologies that import it. Perhaps the best
> > > > starting
> > > > point is the presentation at
> > > > http://www.opengroup.org/projects/soa-ontology/doc.tpl?gdid=12153
> > > > which I delivered at the recent OMG meeting. This explains the
> > > > ontology and how we think it will be used.
> > > >
> > > > We will produce a new draft in January, and will address the
> > > > comments
> > > > in that draft.
> > > >
> > > > All the best for Christmas and the New Year!
> > > >
> > > > Regards,
> > > >
> > > > Chris
> > > > +++++
> > > >
> > > > ========================================================================
> > > > Dr. Christopher J. Harding
> > > > Forum Director for SOA and Semantic Interoperability
> > > > THE OPEN GROUP
> > > > Thames Tower, 37-45 Station Road, Reading RG1 1LX, UK
> > > > Mailto:c.harding@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Phone (mobile): +44 774 063 1520
> > > > http://www.opengroup.org
> > > >
> > > > Enterprise Architecture Practitioners Conference
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> > > > Member Meetings: January 29 - February 2, 2007
> > > >
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>------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Ken Laskey
> MITRE Corporation, M/S H305 phone: 703-983-7934
> 7515 Colshire Drive fax: 703-983-1379
> McLean VA 22102-7508
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Andrew S. Townley <ast@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
http://atownley.org (09)
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