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

["Bashioum, Christopher D" <cbashioum@mitre.org>]

I just now read the actual blog, and I think Dave L. is right-on with
regard to the overall intent of better describing services in a
consistent way.  In fact, I've been working on such a meta-description
for services for the DoD for a number of months now.  My problem is
with the term.  I made the following post to his blog

<Post>
Agree with the article, but not the term metaservice.  We are using the
term "service definition framework" for the added information used to
describe the services.  

I would submit that most of this additional information should exist
within the WSDL framework, most of it in the abstract portion.  In
WSDL-2.0, it would generally be children of the Interface element.

My problem with the term "metaservice" is that it sounds more like a
type of service (like a stock quote service, or a weather service).  It
does not communicate what you are looking for.  A better term might be
meta-description, or a meta-interface, or something like that
</Post>

That being said, Joe's original comment to the SOA-RM list about a
metaservice being a "service about services" would also have another
name, depending on what it did.  E.g., an aggregation service, an
orchestration service, etc.  To call it a metaservice doesn't really
describe what it does.  On the other hand, any service that uses other
services may be a "type" or "class" of service that uses other
services.  In which case a service that is itself an aggregation of
other 'lower-level' services would be a metaservice.  This might be
helpful in distinguishing between atomic services and metaservices. 

-----Original Message-----
From: Rex Brooks [mailto:rexb@starbourne.com] 
Sent: Monday, February 13, 2006 10:39 AM
To: McGregor.Wesley@tbs-sct.gc.ca; soa-rm@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: RE: [soa-rm] What Is A "Metaservice"?

Good point Wes,

Would it make an errata? Just to pre-empt the obvious.

Regards,
Rex

P.S. What would the equivalent be in a bus or a fabric? Can I build a 
server for it? Does it do Windows?

At 9:57 AM -0500 2/13/06, <McGregor.Wesley@tbs-sct.gc.ca> wrote:
>Hi Joe,
>
>The definition of "meta-service" would be dependent on the context 
>in which it is used IMHO.
>
>I would note however that some company will define it soon, publish 
>it, and that definition (even if erroneous) may be THE definition.
>
>To simply ignore the inevitable is to put our heads in the sand.
>
>A service about services seems logically equivalent to data about
data.
>
>Do we need to say more?
>
>Regards,
>
>Wes


-- 
Rex Brooks
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Starbourne Communications Design
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