SOA Modeling Patterns for Service-Oriented Discovery and Analysis

Part II. SERVICE-ORIENTED DISCOVERY PATTERNS

The most common questions asked during the Service-Oriented Discovery phase are usually: What does service discovery entail? Where should we start? How should a service be discovered? What is the process of service identification? Do the ascertained services meet business or technological requirements? These questions, and others, underscore the mounting recognition that ad hoc or opportunistic approaches to identifying and establishing services for a small project or a large development initiative are not always satisfactory. The term "opportunistic" refers to the sporadic flow of ideas that arise during meetings, conference calls, or design sessions to propose solutions to an organizational concern. Despite this unmanaged solution proposition method services can still be ascertained during the development life cycle. However, the lack of a systematic approach to discovering services may not be in line with business or technical imperatives.

The other concern that often occupies practitioners' minds is the lack of a comprehensive approach to discovering services. In other words, an unplanned service discovery venture that is not driven by a solid service identification strategy typically does not yield the right services for the project or characteristically does not satisfy the spectrum of the problem. Consider, for example, a development effort sponsored to create a Content Rendering Service for a news agency Web site. Unfortunately, ...