Requirements Modelling and Specification for Service Oriented Architecture

8.3. Other Miscellaneous Standards

UML, of course contains more than the activity diagram and SOA analysts will need to know about at least class, use case and state diagrams. When moving to the design of messaging within a SOA implementation, the UML sequence diagram is also a very natural and helpful tool. The UML specification is maintained by the Object Management Group (OMG).

Another important OMG specification is MDA (Model Driven Architecture) which is a software development approach the OMG announced as long ago as 2001: it has been influential though has limited take up in many industry sectors. MDA supports a form of code generation and provides a set of guidelines for structuring specifications expressed as models as described in Chapter 2 (Section 2.4). MDA principles can also be applied to other areas such as business process modelling where the PIM is translated to either automated or manual processes so that MDA is a good starting point for modelling a BPEL implementation. I think that the CIM is a better place to start with more general business process modelling - which is partly what Chapter 5 was all about. You can find the specification and other information at:

• http://www.omg.org/mda/

At the end of Chapter 4 and in Chapter 5, I introduced the notion of collaborative business processes. The nearest thing to this idea to be found among the myriad standards on offer is BPSS (Business Process Specification Schema) (an OASIS specification). The BPSS notion of collaboration ...