suggested rewording and comments for section 3.1

1.1 Acting in a SOA Ecosystem Model

~~At the core of participants interacting in a SOA ecosystem is the concept of action – participants are acting against[KL1]~~ ~~services in order to get their needs met.[KL2]~~ ~~Service providers are acting in order to satisfy those needs and governance parties act in order to ensure the smooth operation of the systems.~~

At the core of SOA is the concept of action; in particular, actions that cross one or more ownership boundaries and lead to participants in a SOA ecosystem performing actions involving systems that do not belong to them.

For example, if a consumer wishes to book an airline ticket, the consumer may interact with an airline reservation system that is accessible using a SOA service provided by the airline. In order to achieve the goal of a reservation, the consumer must use actions recognized by a reservation system that was designed to satisfy the policies and other assumptions about context made by the airline and those implementing the reservation system and the associated SOA service. Conversely, those designing the reservation system and the SOA service must consider what actions will be intuitive to a consumer who was not involved in the system design. Thus, the required actions must satisfy the needs of both the provider and the consumer.

The example can be decomposed to show actions at several levels. The most obvious actions are those that directly map to the business function the SOA service makes available. Here, the actions involve the exchange of information necessary to create the real world effects associated with the airline reservation. These actions are public and establish the expectations of those interacting via the SOA service.

There are also private actions that are necessary to realize the public business function. These are actions performed by each of the participants but whose details are not known to other participants. For example, the consumer does not know how the provider internally tracks the reservation; the provider does not know how the consumer establishes credit worthiness to enable use of a credit card for payment. The SOA principle of opacity allows the providers and consumers to interact without these details being known.

At another level, there is the technical actions required to send and receive messages that convey the business information. Here, the details will include message exchange protocols and security aspects such as ensuring the integrity and confidentiality of the message exchange. For example, a SSL connection is often used when exchanging credit card information, but this can be accomplished with the consumer knowing little if anything about how a SSL connection works. However, the details are of critical importance to those involved in the system design and implementation.

When the consumer purchases a ticket, the action is to purchase the ticket but the means of doing so involves an interaction with the airline. However, both the interaction itself and the purchase are actions that must be understood at different levels – at the level of the IT systems through which messages are communicated and at the level of the reservation service through which the effects of the purchase are recorded.

~~There are many parallels between the way that human society is organized, and the way that humans can act using the power of others.~~ ~~There are also parallels in satisfying business needs and satisfying the mechanistic needs of the systems and processes that enable the bringing together of needs and capabilities to satisfy our goals~~

In this section we establish the key principles of action as an abstract concept. We elaborate on action in the context of acting in a social context as joint action. And we also establish the connections necessary between the different levels of understanding of action that allow participants to interact as a means of getting things done.

In this section, we establish the key principles of action and identify those who take part in actions in a SOA ecosystem. The emphasis is action at the level of business functions and those actions visible to all relevant SOA stakeholders. Except where specifically noted, it is assumed that the details of private actions are unknown; in addition, the mechanisms for action at the protocol and network levels are assumed in place, being provided as part of the technical underpinnings of the SOA ecosystem.

A key aspect is that of joint action, where both a sender and receiver of a message must exhibit a willingness to communicate and a mutual understanding of the information exchanged and the expected results. That willingness and understanding are established is critical to the successful use of SOA systems; while the implications of willingness and understanding are explored in depth, the details of how communications is used to establish such agreements is beyond the scope of this Reference Architecture.

Besides joint action, other action types are introduced as needed to fully explain action needed to conduct business in the SOA ecosystem.

[KL1]what exactly does “acting against” mean?

[KL2]This is true of consumers but a different twist for providers, governors.

soa-rm-ra message

1.1 Acting in a SOA Ecosystem Model