SOA Modeling Patterns for Service-Oriented Discovery and Analysis

Chapter 13. SERVICE CONTEXTUAL CATEGORIZATION PATTERNS

Unlike structural categorization discussed in Chapter 12, contextual classification is based on semantic typing of services. The term "semantic" implies that the focus of this process should be on relating a service to an area of expertise that is valuable to a solution. It also pertains to affiliating a service to a line of business and particular business functionality. From a technological perspective, a service can be associated with certain technical tasks that are vital to execution of transactions. For example, a service that executes accounts payable is typically classified as an accounting or business type of service. On the technological front, a service that is designed to handle encryption of data is characteristically categorized as a security or technical entity. These semantic relationships between services and various business or technical specialties form the crux of the contextual categorization process.

The reader may have recognized that the categorization process is about service typing. This approach assists practitioners in affiliating a service to a business or technical specialty. Therefore, classifying services by their semantic association to the type of functionality they offer contributes immensely to the establishment of an organizational service taxonomy. This catalog of service capabilities contributes to an enterprise software portfolio that fosters asset reuse and consolidation of services and ...