So What is a Service Ecosystem Anyway?

[Rex Brooks <rexb@starbourne.com>]

Frank asked the question in the Subject Line in last week's meeting, 
and I thought it might be wiser to discuss a possible dealbreaker on 
the list rather than in the next meeting. I suspect that this 
suggestion is the result of reaching a point where we're getting 
stale or stalemated after slogging away at this so long. Regardless...

I reviewed what I thought was the most relevant section of the RAF 
that deals with this: Section 1.2 Service Oriented Architecture -- An 
Ecosystems Perspective. I still don't have a specific problem with 
this as the consistent perspective that informs the rest of the 
document as a foundation for more specific or solution-specific RAs.

However, if anything might need to be added to that section I would 
add a brief reworking of the Wikipedia's citation from 
"Christopherson, RW (1996) Geosystems: An Introduction to Physical 
Geography Prentice-Hall Inc. (I have substituted SOA RAF terms for 
those in square brackets "[]")

A Service Ecosystem [ecosystem] is a [(sic)natural] unit consisting 
of all services, service providers and service consumers [plants, 
animals and micro-organisms (biotic factors)] in an area functioning 
together with all of the business [non-living physical (abiotic)] 
factors of the environment. A service ecosystem is a completely 
independent unit of interdependent entities [organisms] which share 
the same habitat. Service ecosystems usually form a number of service 
chains [food webs] which show the interdependence of the services 
[organisms] within the ecosystem.

(addition) It is important to note that the Service Ecosystems 
Perspective in this context concerns itself mostly with the 
relationships and transactions that span enterprise boundaries.

Cheers,
Rex
-- 
Rex Brooks
President, CEO
Starbourne Communications Design
GeoAddress: 1361-A Addison
Berkeley, CA 94702
Tel: 510-898-0670