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Subject: RE: [soa-rm] RE: Service definition at nauseum
I am okay with this with one
addition: A service (in the context of
SOA) is a business relevant capability or function offered and packaged by a
provider and made accessible to consumers where access is provided using a prescribed
interface that abstracts (or hides) the implementation details of the
capability or function, and is exercised consistent with the contracts and
policies as specified by its description. The business related addition is
an extremely important point here. Without it there is no difference between SOA
and distributed computing From: Bashioum,
Christopher D [mailto:cbashioum@mitre.org] Jeff, I think I’m ok with this, but
there is some tweaking we need to do still. I’m thinking about the
“offered by a provider for a consumer” part. There is a subtlety here
that is important to get at, and that I believe you were attempting to get at
when you mentioned “accessed via a technology nuetral interface” in a previous
email. I think the basic idea is
something along the lines of “offered by a provider for a class of consumers”,
or “offered by a provider for a ‘generic consumer’” or something along those
lines. What we are getting at is that the service is sort of generic in
nature, it is not optimized for a particular customer. The way we “used to” do things
was to focus on the capability and do specific integrations as necessary
if anyone “else” wanted to make use of that capability. With SOA, the
emphasis is on the “offered to others”, and all that that entails (especially
when the “others” are part of another ownership domain). That’s really what we were
trying to get at when using the term “mechanism to access a capability”. I’ve been thinking about this a
*lot* because I realize that the definition that we currently have in
the RM has been distasteful for many, and I think has been the cause for less
adoption of the RM than we would have hoped. The concept is correct, but
the language has been a stumbling block. So ... if we can capture the
idea of “offering for the generic others” I think we will be in good shape. Note also that the term
capability is really a potential for something, not the actual doing of
something. The noun “service” is the “performance of duties or work for
another”. Another definition has the “performance of a function for
another”. The term function may be more applicable than capability, where
capability speaks of the potential to do work (capability: qualities, abilities, features, etc., that can be used or
developed; potential) and function speaks more of a repeatable “chunk” of work. How’s this for a tweak? A service (in the context of
SOA) is a capability or function offered and packaged by a provider and made
accessible to consumers where access is provided using a prescribed interface
that abstracts (or hides) the implementation details of the capability or
function, and is exercised consistent with the contracts and policies as
specified by its description. From: Estefan, Jeff A (3100) [mailto:jeffrey.a.estefan@jpl.nasa.gov]
Colleagues, Now that some of the message
traffic has settled, here’s another update to the proposed SOA service
definition that should be closer to the mark while allowing for a little wiggle
room. A service (in the context of
SOA) is a capability offered by a provider for a consumer where access is
provided using a prescribed interface that abstracts (or hides) the
implementation details of the capability, and is exercised consistent with the
contracts and policies as specified by its description. Will follow up the threads after
the weekend. Regards... - Jeff The information contained in this communication may be CONFIDENTIAL and is intended only for the use of the recipient(s) named above. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, or copying of this communication, or any of its contents, is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify the sender and delete/destroy the original message and any copy of it from your computer or paper files. |
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