Chris,
There is a distinction made in
the EERP work that we realized too late: the distinction between a business
service and a SOA service. The business service is the functionality brought
to bear in order to realize a set of desired real world effects. The
capability is an entity that implements the required functionality and is
accessed in a SOA ecosystem via a SOA service.
If I preface their initial use
of Services with “Business”, then the point is not only
clarified but consistent with their second sentence. I think it also has
all the clarifying properties you propose.
Ken
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Dr. Kenneth Laskey
MITRE Corporation, M/S
H305
phone: 703-983-7934
7515 Colshire
Drive
fax: 703-983-1379
McLean VA 22102-7508
I sort
of agree, except that the RM doesn’t state what you just did. The
service is “the mechanism by which needs and capabilities are brought
together”. It explicitly distinguishes the mechanism for access
from the capability itself – it does not state that using the capability
makes it a service. It’s a fine distinctinction, but an important
one.
So ...
back to my original concern. I think the reason there has not been more
adoption of the RM is that folks don’t know how to tie it to the
capability, and many folks have been using the term “service” to
apply to the underlying capability vs. the ability to bring that capability to
bear for “anyone’s” need. I.e., the business service as
distinct from the SOA service.
I
don’t think that is correct.
A capability
addresses a need – it is a *potential* to perform a service - the
need is satisfied by using the capability: the service.
Capabilities
don’t “perform” anything, they just “are”. The
performance of a service – delivering a real world effect – depends
on there being a capability but is not the same thing.
Cheers,
Peter
Has anyone else from the SOA RM TC
reviewed the OASIS SOA-EERP whitepaper
They reference the RM, however,
there is one paragraph that caught my attention:
Services
are performed by people,
machines, and hardware/software applications, and represented by SOA services. The
qualities of a business service are expressed by means of the Business Quality
of Service (bQoS) specification. The nature of bQoS varies across industries
and services.
The
RM would change this to
Capabilities
are performed by people,
machines, and hardware/software applications, and represented by SOA services.
The qualities of a business service are expressed by means of the Business
Quality of Service (bQoS) specification. The nature of bQoS varies across
industries and services.
I
think we may need to do something about addressing the idea of a capability
that is intended for “others”, i.e., a business service –
which is enabled in Software by a SOA service in front of a capability.
We’ve talked about it, but I think a whitepaper on this will be
useful.
Note
that such a whitepaper would also go a long way towards helping to navigate the
SOA Standards landscape, as I think the main issue between the various SDOs on
SOA is about using the term “service” to mean “functionality
intended for others” vs. as an IT artifact that enables access to such
funtionality (which is the RM view).
Thoughts?