On 10/26/05, Anil John <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Is there general agreement on what a "Service" is and what an > "Application" is in the context of a SOA? > > Some of the definitions I've come across for a Service are: > > "A service is a location on the network that has a machine-readable > description of the messages it receives and optionally returns" -- SOA > with Web Services by Eric Newcomer & Greg Lomow
These are useful technical definitions but beg the question of what the location on the network or computer program or discrete unit of logic actually does in the real world. ] In the real world, services provide something of value to those who know how to request and consume them, without having to know how to produce that value or actually do the work. The "service sector" of the economy consists of those businesses that don't produce anything, but consolidate, package, prepare, deliver, repair, etc. things . Service orientation is an approach to designing systems in which each component knows only how to request and consume the services provided by other components, and little about their internal algorithms, data structures, stored data formats, query languages, etc. SOAP, WSDL, and the others are a set of specifications and technologies that describe in detail how to request software services using Web and XML tools. The most important feature of these technologies is that they define only the interface to a software component or process, and are independent of the language it is implemented in or the platform it runs on. So, Eric's definition is that of a service *interface*, but we still need to wrestle with, or agree to leave as an axiomatic term, "service" itself. (largely self-plagarized from http://www.cioupdate.com/trends/article.php/3434691) ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Fair play? Video games influencing politics. Click and talk back! http://us.click.yahoo.com/T8sf5C/tzNLAA/TtwFAA/NhFolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/service-orientated-architecture/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
