RE: [soa-rm] Service Consumer in RM or not?

To clarify: We already achieved consensus on the service consumer aspect of this on our last conference call.

That is, we decided that:

(1) Although a service orientation RM (which we decided Figure 2-1 represents) does not require a service consumer, a service-oriented architecture RM does.

(2) We would develop a SOA RM that extends the current service orientation RM as part of our work, and that SOA RM would include (at a minimum) a service consumer in addition to the service orientation RM.

(3) This inclusion of a service consumer would not be a reference architecture, but rather a reference model - namely, a SOA reference model.

Thanks,

Joe

Hi - I'm back!!

Comments inline:

Peter F Brown wrote:

>1) A service is an event
>
DN - a "service invocation" is an event. The "service" itself is not an
event IMO, it is an invoke able entity..

>representing a collaboration between two parties
>for the use of defined resources: a "service RM" would be concerned with
>representing both parties (provider and consumer), the duality of their
>interaction through the event and the use of resources...
>In this approach:
>- service consumer would definitely be in, as one side of the event-based
>duality (provider<>consumer);
>- a further level of abstraction can be modelled, that of "agent", to
>highlight the shared properties of both provider and consumer. In this
>manner, it would be easier to answer the problem "how do we model the
>situation where a service provider can also be a consumer, and vice-versa?".
>They are both agents. Whether they are consumers or providers would
>therefore be modelled as a "role" in agent.
>
>2) A service is a "directed collaboration" between two parties: directed in
>the sense that one party provides a service to another: a "service provision
>RM" would only be concerned with one side of the duality, representing the
>service provider, irrespective of whether the service is used, or whether
>there is a consumer at the end of the "pipe"...
>
>
I would like to call for a vote on this too to put it to bed for once an
all. My assertion = If I architect something with a service, a consumer
does not have to be present for it to be "service oriented". Nor do
messages, networks, signals, pings, security, encryption etc etc. This
is much the same as stating that a "message" does not have to be sent in
order for it to be a "message". It can exist with or without being
transmitted.

If we do go the way of the service provider and service consumer, this
could be done in an illustrative (non-normative) manner in the RM or
(and I favor this idea) as part of a reference architecture. If we do
vote to include the SC, we then have to open up the RM to everything
else that follows which means that it won't be a RM, it will be
architecture.

I had hoped we could gain consensus on this and avoid a vote however I
feel a vote may be inevitable.

BTW - has anyone else noticed that the list is very slow today? It took
5 hours for my last message to come back to me via this list?

Duane

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