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

[Ken Laskey <klaskey@mitre.org>]

Wes,

My problem is we seem to have a term for which we are searching for a 
meaning.  We do better in making concepts clear (including concepts 
beyond the RM) and then figuring out a descriptive name.  The term 
"metaservice" seems like confusion just begging to happen, i.e. the 
name doesn't provide an unambiguous description and our discussion 
points out possibilities but also doesn't know which of the 
possibilities is needed and why.

I dismiss out-of-hand the ambiguous creation of jargon, not in 
developing understanding of (and naming) real problems.

Ken

At 02:45 PM 2/13/2006, McGregor.Wesley@tbs-sct.gc.ca wrote:
>Ken,
>
> From a minimalist point of view your point is valid and the RM as 
> it now stands reflects that.
>
>For those who manage large multi-business, multi-jurisdiction, 
>multi-departmental, multi-lingual enterprises, there may be great 
>value in having a "meta-service" in order to assist the 
>classification of services and provide the level of abstraction 
>needed to ease the building of a common framework.
>
>To out-of-hand dismiss the idea, is, to say the least, self-defeating.
>
>Regards,
>
>Wes
>
>P.S. Be careful of what you call worthless,  what large SOA players 
>are backing this RM?
>
>
>  -----Original Message-----
>From:   Ken Laskey [mailto:klaskey@mitre.org]
>Sent:   February 13, 2006 2:23 PM
>To:     Bashioum, Christopher D
>Cc:     McGregor, Wesley; Rex Brooks; soa-rm@lists.oasis-open.org
>Subject:        Re: [soa-rm] What Is A "Metaservice"?
>
>  From an SOA standpoint, unless it is vital information that would
>somehow be made known through the service description, there is only a
>service and we neither know nor care whether it is atomic or meta.
>
>re another comment, I see no reason to generate a worthless definition
>just to beat someone else's worthless definition to the punch.
>
>Ken
>
>On Feb 13, 2006, at 11:00 AM, Bashioum, Christopher D wrote:
>
> > 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
> > President, CEO
> > Starbourne Communications Design
> > GeoAddress: 1361-A Addison
> > Berkeley, CA 94702
> > Tel: 510-849-2309
> >
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>------------------
>Ken Laskey
>MITRE Corporation, M/S H305     phone:  703-983-7934
>7515 Colshire Drive                        fax:        703-983-1379
>McLean VA 22102-7508

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   /   Ken 
Laskey                                                                \
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