Re: [soa-rm-ra] Some initial reflections and questions

Peter and Chris,

A little background …

The choice to use 1471 (now 42010) was originally mine and I stand by that decision.

Why?

Because what we were about to embark on 4+ years ago was not producing an architecture per se but rather an architecture description (a work product). Recall that all systems have an architecture whether described or not.

Our objective, as I recall, was to produce an abstraction of the SOA paradigm (again, in the form of an architecture description) where we would use standards-based visual models and supporting text to describe the key elements and their relationships needed to enable SOA-based systems to be "used," "realized," and "owned." These three perspectives formed the basis of our viewpoints.

With respect to viewpoint 1, the original name was "Business Viewpoint" with the associated "Business View." The viewpoint was subsequently renamed to “Service Ecosystem Viewpoint” (see why in the next paragraph). I would prefer we call it the "Using SOAs Viewpoint" and associated "Using SOAs View," which would be consistent with the original scope of this body of work.

Later in our subcommittee progress, it was suggested that the RA go beyond the RM to suggest the paradigm of SOA can be characterized as an ecosystem-based paradigm. Unfortunately, the term "ecosystem" is not used consistently in the current draft of the spec. Sometimes we call it "SOA Ecosystem" and sometimes we call it "Service Ecosystem." We need to be consistent. This conceptual mapping came later in the development of the spec and is what found its way into renaming viewpoint 1 the "Service Ecosystem Viewpoint." On reflection, this seems an erroneous decision. Again, I suggest "Using SOAs Viewpoint" as a possible alternative.

These viewpoints, while foundational for our architecture description, were not intended to be representative of a Library of Viewpoints to be used by other concrete or reference architectures. They were crafted specifically for this RA, which we felt (and others like our Open Group friends) that what we were producing was foundational in nature with specific focus on describing (architecturally) the paradigm of SOA (See The Open Group’s architecture continuum at http://www.opengroup.org/architecture/togaf9-doc/arch/chap39.html#tag_40_04_01). I would say that the content of the views themselves and in particular the Architectural Implications have been designed to be used by other concrete or reference architectures. I also agree that "weeding" is in order if we find content that does not meet the spirit of that intended purpose and scope.

With respect to the 1471/42010 conceptual model, there are a couple of sources in the open literature and even TOGAF V9 has one (also in the open literature), but I believe we may still need to obtain permission for its use in our spec. You may recall somebody asked us to remove the full 1471 spec from our Kavi site.

Hope this helps “demystify” some of the decisions and how we got to where we are today.

Regards…

- Jeff

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