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




Question I have is whether this is really a meta-service, or just another
service definition but one which doesn't have a direct technological
implementation.  WSDL could be argued (and certainly after a few pints) to
be a meta-service as it describes rather than implements, but I'm not sure
it moves us forwards.

I would agree that there are types of services which act as either
containers or templates for multiple types of services, but often these are
accessed via the single point which they then route to the actual
implementation (e.g. a region specific fraud-detection system) or are used
to manage similar services under a common management domain.  I'd argue that
in both of these cases these are still actual services as whether by routing
or as a result of management they have a real-world impact.

Services are already "meta" elements themselves so having a classification
of meta-service, rather than a pattern of governance or implementation that
helps to unify similar services might make things more complex and we end up
with meta-meta-meta services et al.

Steve


-----Original Message-----
From: McGregor.Wesley@tbs-sct.gc.ca [mailto:McGregor.Wesley@tbs-sct.gc.ca]
Sent: 13 February 2006 19:45
To: klaskey@mitre.org; cbashioum@mitre.org
Cc: rexb@starbourne.com; soa-rm@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: RE: [soa-rm] What Is A "Metaservice"?

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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