Re: [soa-rm] What Is A "Metaservice"?

I typically cause physical damage to people who say metadata is about data. (OK, not really.) That is a circular definition that tells you nothing. In our context, metadata is a subset of information related to an entity, including parts of the entity, that are needed for a particular purpose. That means metadata can also be descriptive information about a service. The early SOA-RM drafts (I think 07 and before) had an appendix on metadata

As far as metaservice, the description of service supports a hierarchy or combination of services, including services working with and on other services. To have metaservice as a useful concept, you would need a base level SERVICE and then things acting on it. The identification of SERVICE will be use dependent and the source of endless, fruitless arguments.

On Feb 10, 2006, at 8:34 AM, Chiusano Joseph wrote:

This may potentially be pertinent for our Reference Architecture work:

In a recent entry[1] in his blog called "Focus on Repositories", David Linthicum mentions the term "metaservice". Quote (see end of [1]):

"Since data about data is called metadata, I call data about services metaservices. A term we may be hearing more about in the future, and what will exist in these repositories."

I differ with Dave on this, and see "metaservice" as being something different. Here's my comment on his blog:

<Comment>

On the following: "Since data about data is called metadata, I call data about services metaservices":

Since metadata is "data about data", I wonder if a metaservice should really be considered a "service about services"? If so, what would that really mean? Perhaps it's a service that "sits above" a number of other services and provides, well, services about (or for?) those services that, upon invocation, returns various details about those services, or perhaps performs services upon the services themselves (such as aggregating them at design time).

Just thinking out loud here...
</Comment>

Comments on my comment?

Joe

[1] http://blogs.ittoolbox.com/eai/cto/archives/007469.asp

Joseph Chiusano

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