Update to Service Interface Model (+ New Interaction Dependencies Model)

["Jeffrey A. Estefan" <jeffrey.a.estefan@jpl.nasa.gov>]

Colleagues,

 

Thinking about modeling the Service Interface on the way home from work this afternoon (yes, I need to get a life!), I realized that the Service Interface is that element of SOA-based systems that is the reusable piece that is technology opaque.  That is in SOA-based systems, the Service Interface needs to be agnostic to the technology used to implement the Service.  Further, not only does it need to be independent from service implementation, but it needs to be a reusable element that is independent of the technology used to physically interact with the service, i.e., the Service Reachability part of Visibility that includes Service Bindings, Service Location (endpoint), and Service Presence.  Theoretically, there is no reason why a Service could not support multiple protocol bindings and/or endpoints.

 

Consequently, I've updated the visual model for Service Interface that I sent earlier today that drops the association to Service Reachability.  Ken, please ignore my recommended comments to add descriptive text regarding visibility elements to the Service Interface section of the Service Description Model.   That said, I do suggest that we add some wording along the lines of the aforementioned comments regarding reusability of the service interface and its technology opaqueness.

 

So where does that leave us with regards to Service Reachability (more specifically, Visibility) and the Service Interface?  The answer is, of course, Interaction, which I believe is what Ken was getting at only slightly more embellished and there's still that issue of "Action" vs. what I'm showing as the Action Model.  Interaction has a dependency on both Visibility and Service Interface.  I've created a simplified visual model representing this notion and it is also attached.  I will add this diagram to the Interacting with Services Model along with some supporting text.  But not until I get my tutorial updates to you Frank!  I promise!

 

Regards...

 

 - Jeff

Interaction_Dependencies.png

Service_Interface.png