SOA Modeling Patterns for Service-Oriented Discovery and Analysis

Chapter 10. MEET-IN-THE-MIDDLE SERVICE DISCOVERY PATTERN

Practitioners may realize that not all technological and architectural aspects of a service ecosystem have been explored after the four distinct patterns of the service-oriented discovery process—Top-Down (71,89), Bottom-Up (145), Front-to-Back (105), and Back-to-Front (123)—have been pursued. To complete this service identification quest, architects, developers, modelers, analysts, and managers ought to identify the architectural components that are responsible for gluing together a service operating environment. The process that bridges these gaps during a service discovery venture is often referred to as connecting the dots. To connect the services that have been identified so far, a rigorous analysis process must persist. This time, however, the direction is clear: the Meet-in-the-Middle service discovery pattern simply shifts the attention to a more horizontal view of an organizational architecture. This focus is now turning to three chief areas of concern that must be addressed by specialized services: Integration Services, Common Business Services, and Infrastructure Services. Exhibit 10.1 illustrates the Meet-in-the-Middle service pattern model that consists of these services.

First, the concerns that motivate the establishment of integration-oriented services (INTOS) are interoperability, distribution, and connectivity. Obviously, interoperability is about bridging distributed services, enabling communication between ...