FW: [ebsoa] SOA and Shared Semantics

["Dan Pattyn" <danpattyn@austin.rr.com>]

This is central to BCM/EPR so cross posting. <Dan/>

-----Original Message-----
From: Schuldt, Ron L [mailto:ron.l.schuldt@lmco.com] 
Sent: Friday, July 02, 2004 10:06 AM
To: Chiusano Joseph; ebSOA
Cc: Sharma, Sameer
Subject: RE: [ebsoa] SOA and Shared Semantics

ebSOA Team,

On Monday and Tuesday of this week, I participated in an "invitation
only" Enterprise Information Integration (EII) workshop that was
sponsored by the Defense Logistics Agency. The focus of the EII workshop
was semantics integration solutions to solve a case study (but real
world problem) involving legacy systems. Approximately 55-60 "thought
leaders" were invited to the workshop. The attendees represented the
following -- DoD, the military services, other government agencies,
prime contractors (Lockheed Martin and Boeing), IT vendors (IBM,
Microsoft, Unicorn, MetaMatrix, Contivo, Network Inference, and others),
standards bodies (X12, IEEE, ebXML and W3C) and recognized experts on
the topics of OWL, RDF, Topic Maps, UDEF, and other semantics
integration concepts and technologies.

In addition to an outstanding keynote presentation by Jeff Pollock on
the subject of semantics integration, the outbriefs by the three teams
warrant your review - see http://www.meiim.com/eii_events.htm 

Following several presentations on Monday morning, the attendees were
divided into three teams and each was asked to solve the same case
study. Although the case study was fictitious, it illustrated a real
world condition involving legacy systems. You can gain some insight to
the problem by looking at http://www.meiim.com/enter_EII.htm  

All three workgroups were assigned the same case study titled "DoD
Widget Procurement System (WPS)." Within a four hour time span, each
team was expected to develop an overview of the proposed plan and
approach; develop an AS-IS characterization of the existing WPS
environment; develop a TO-BE systems architecture; discuss how the group
plans to overcome some of the obstacles cited in the case study; and
project downstream cost savings and cost avoidance opportunities.

The outbriefs by each team contained some common key elements within the
TO-BE architecture - specifically the need for a "loosely coupled"
metamodel (based on an ontology) and the use of OWL and RDF. Each team
briefed the DLA customer who was very pleased with the product developed
by each team. For reference, I was part of team #2. 

IMHO the outbriefs by the three teams plus the presentation by Jeff
Pollock provide a solid starting point for any discussions regarding
"shared semantics" by this list.

Ron Schuldt
Senior Staff Systems Architect
Lockheed Martin Enterprise Information Systems
11757 W. Ken Caryl Ave.
#F521 Mail Point DC5694
Littleton, CO 80127
303-977-1414
ron.l.schuldt@lmco.com


-----Original Message-----
From: Chiusano Joseph [mailto:chiusano_joseph@bah.com]
Sent: Thursday, July 01, 2004 5:33 PM
To: ebSOA
Subject: Re: [ebsoa] SOA and Shared Semantics


David,

Thank you for giving me a useless answer that does not even come close
to addressing my question below, not once but twice. I obviously do not
even remotely get your point.

Frankly, I am looking for answers that I can convey to my US federal
clients, not (with all due respect to the efforts) some set of acronyms
that they are not even going to have heard of, because the efforts are
either too bleeding-edge for me to offer, or they have not been widely
enough embraced by the federal community and/or vendors to make them
appealing.

If we cannot get straight answers to simple, straightforward questions
like the ones that I posed below, I believe that the chances of this TC
being successful are - at this point - 2% at best. I hope we can
increase that soon.

Thanks,
Joe

David RR Webber wrote:
> 
> Joe,
> 
> That's my whole point.
> 
> The BCM/EPR work does provide a very broad
> set of usage scenarios.
> 
> I believe we need to build from a solid foundation.
> 
> If we just run after isolated aspects - we will
> lose the opportunity to provide a coherent
> solution set.
> 
> That is why I'm focusing on areas that provide
> such coherence to provide a sensible set of
> base requirements.
> 
> DW.
> 
> Quoting Chiusano Joseph <chiusano_joseph@bah.com>:
> 
> > Thanks David.
> >
> > How about in more general terms, stepping aside for a moment from
> > specific emerging initiatives - I'm thinking more generally, such
as:
> > what role should ontologies play? Why are they important in this
> > context? How about metadata registries? etc.
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Joe
> >
> > David RR Webber wrote:
> > >
> > > Joe,
> > >
> > > At this juncture I would like to point out
> > > that the BCM/EPR team is preparing a set of
> > > requirements for submission to ebSOA.
> > >
> > > This stems from the work and meetings in
> > > Norway over the past two weeks.
> > >
> > > And indeed semantic information is a
> > > significant part of this - not only
> > > for common understanding - but also
> > > when used to create ontologies and
> > > topic maps for discovery and reuse
> > > of components.
> > >
> > > The essence of the BCM/EPR needs can
> > > be distilled in part from the PPT
> > > presented in Norway - available
> > > from http://www.eprforum.org
> > >
> > > However - we are working on formalizing
> > > the exact mechanisms and base requirements
> > > so that an ebSOA based set of components
> > > can support an BCM/EPR deployment.
> > >
> > > It's obviously good to be able to focus
> > > on a real deployment model - to be able
> > > to hone exact requirements, and
> > > combination of requirements - rather than
> > > things being noted in a piecemeal fashion.
> > >
> > > Hope this helps.
> > >
> > > Thanks, DW
> > >
> > > Quoting Chiusano Joseph <chiusano_joseph@bah.com>:
> > >
> > > > Is this a topic that we're planning on including in our spec? (I
think
> > > > we should) We can emphasize the role of ontologies in helping
ensure
> > > > "shared semantic understanding" between participants in an SOA.
> > > >
> > > > Joe
> > > > --
> > > > Kind Regards,
> > > > Joseph Chiusano
> > > > Associate
> > > > Booz | Allen | Hamilton
> > > >
> > >
> > > http://drrw.net
> >
> > --
> > Kind Regards,
> > Joseph Chiusano
> > Associate
> > Booz | Allen | Hamilton
> >
> 
> http://drrw.net

-- 
Kind Regards,
Joseph Chiusano
Associate
Booz | Allen | Hamilton