[soa-rm] Public Review Comment

["Miko Matsumura" <mmatsumura@infravio.com>]

Hi folks.
 
I have a comment on this section:
A service is opaque in that its implementation is typically hidden from the service consumer 273

except for (1) the information and behavior models exposed through the service interface and (2) 274

the information required by service consumers to determine whether a given service is 275

appropriate for their needs. 276

I am curious about this definition because it appears to exclude in the definition of the service description any additional information used by service providers for the purpose of maintaining a service. This is just one example of a purpose and a constituency which does not appear to be sufficiently served by this definition. In my experience, services are "viewed" by a diverse set of provider and consumer constituencies which each require information about the service implementation. An example would be lifecycle management of a service from the perspective of a service provider. Or would this be viewed as a part of the implementation? In this case, substantial metadata description is needed within the implementation.

It is also referred to in an earlier section here:

In general, entities (people and organizations) offer capabilities and act as service providers. 172

Those with needs who make use of services are referred to as service consumers. The service 173

description allows prospective consumers to decide if the service is suitable for their current 174

needs and establishes whether a consumer satisfies any requirements of the service provider. 175

Services are wonderfully opaque. This is good stuff. Abstracting away the implementation is one of the benefits and provides a degree of commoditization of the implementation. Very handy. However, in practice, dealing with services requires a great deal of service description --only some of which is targeted at service consumers. 

One interpretation is that you could define, for example, someone who is a member of the provider organization, but who is managing the promotion of a service from development stage to production as a "service consumer" in that they are "making use" of the service, and modifying . But I think this definition is a little awkward

Thoughts?

Miko