Re: [ontolog-forum] The Open Group SOA Ontology

["Toby Considine" <tobyconsidine@xxxxxxxxx>]

The observable facts that every new concept is turned into a buzzword, and that every new buzzword can be grafted onto this years shipping part numbers (can you say Enterprise Service Bus?)  does not mean that there are no new concepts, and that new approaches do not, can not deliver actual new value.

Every technology I have worked with started out solid, became hyped as the next new thing, was over marketed as the only new thing, was then discarded as over-hyped, and, finally, was then discovered to be useful and controllable, in the proper place.

SOA at some level is nothing more than OO writ big (nothing new there!) except with agent concepts (Agents are objects that are autonomous) except somehow, from all the small quantitative changes, something new has emerged, in the hands of careful practitioners, separated from the hype.

Ontology and Services, to my mind, go hand and hand. Tell me what I am getting and what good it is. Tell me how to compare what you claim I am getting vs what the other guy claims I am getting. Give me a way to comapre them.

Hide all the deep process, as important as it is, but not essential to the ontology of service. Don't lock me in to one process, but let me understand the myriad of services that I am assembling to acheive value.

Early integrations/analysis were always about "Show me the paper process. I will do exactly the same thing on the computer" This is why, for so long, it was hard to find the value in computerizing process beyond mere automation. Service Analysis turns that on its ear, and asks "What is the value I am getting from this process?" Having asked that, the way is open to ask, "How else might I get that value?"

This is fundamentally a problem of alligning service semantics, and formulating ontologies.  Such work is hard. Avoiding hard work is one of the factors that fuels the hype, for those who want to avoid that work.

But to me, those selling product that pretends to do away with that semantic discovery are no worse than those who claim it is all puffery, and so not worth doing.

Process is only interesting within a domain, or within a company.
Semantics enables comparisons across domains/organizations.
These semantics, when formalized, help recongize services.
Ontology lets us use, re-use, and compare the services in SOA.

They go together,.

One of the pithiest obeservations in this area that I ever heard was that it is impossible to prepare SOA for the procedure oriented enterprise (POE).  If you started with a service oriented enterprise (SOE), then discovering the SOA was easy. A lot of people in a lot of organizations do not understand what value they provide. SOA will be most usefull in governments and large organizations such as Universities precisely because these entities tend to be SOE. By the same token, as many do not understand what service they provide, it will be hardest in those areas.

On Wed, Jul 16, 2008 at 3:28 PM, Ron Wheeler <rwheeler@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Sharma, Ravi wrote:
> Ron
>
> Just a short comment that behavior can also be extracted by examining
> data or other inputs such as decision and dwell time to accurately model
> the business process.
>

In all the years I went shopping with my wife, I was never able to
discern the pattern or come close to modeling even the smallest part of
the process.

> Actually clothing stores would be most interested in capturing this
> customer experience as we did when I was at GM to capture the buying
> preferences for cars and even today surveys-analysts such as J D Powers
> are making hundreds of million dollars in revenue due to this data
> mining knowledge even if a-priori all inputs for the process or behavior
> are not known!
>

I was thinking more about husbands than retailers, the retailer is only
going to lose the sale.
The downside is much more long lasting for husbands.

I am not sure that men are any more rational but I bet it was easier for
GM than it is for most husbands to determine buying preferences.

Ron

> Thanks.
> Ravi
>
> (Dr. Ravi Sharma) Senior Enterprise Architect
>
> Vangent, Inc. Technology Excellence Center (TEC)
>
> 8618 Westwood Center Drive, Suite 310, Vienna VA 22182
> (o) 703-827-0638, (c) 313-204-1740 www.vangent.com
>
> Professional viewpoints do not necessarily imply organizational
> endorsement.
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> [mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Ron Wheeler
> Sent: Wednesday, July 16, 2008 8:56 AM
> To: sowa@xxxxxxxxxxx; [ontolog-forum]
> Cc: c.harding@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] The Open Group SOA Ontology
>
> John F. Sowa wrote:
>
>> I endorse Azamat's questions:
>>
>> AA> ... how should one take this basic definition: "a service
>>
>>
>>> is a logical representation of a repeatable business activity
>>> that has a specified outcome."  Why is its genus "a logical
>>> representation"?
>>>
>>>
>> If I need some service, I want somebody or something to do
>> something.  I don't want a statement in logic (unless my
>> request happened to be for a copy of some formula).
>>
>> AA> ... Again, why is its differentia chosen as "a repeatable
>>
>>
>>> business activity that has a specified outcome".
>>>
>>>
>> Why must a service be repeatable?  Many needs are unique.
>>
>>
> I would think that the meaning of repeatable is more along the lines of
> "If I order a Bud on Monday I get a Bud, if I go back to the bar on
> Tuesday and order a Coors, I get a Coors."
> rather than
> "If I order a Bud on Monday I get a Bud, if I go back to the bar on
> Tuesday and order a Coors, I get a Bud."
>  The repeatability is that I get what I order, not that I always get the
>
> same thing or always get what everyone else orders.
>
>
>
>> And why must it be a business activity?
>>
>>
>>
> I am afraid that business will always get the attention.
> However, if someone could model the process by which women chose
> clothing in a store, men would value this much more than most of the
> business models produced.
> I am just not sure this is possible. A working model would be worthy of
> a Ph.D. in any number of disciplines and possibly a Nobel prize.
>
> There are other human/machine and machine/machine interactions that
> would be subject to modeling that would not be generally understood as
> business.
> Scientific instrumentation is a more serious non-business application
> that could be described in this way.
>
>
>> What does it mean for the outcome to be "specified"?
>> Does that mean "specified in advance"?  But what about
>> emergency services that respond to unpredictable events?
>>
>>
>>
> They still should have a behaviour that is specified in advance.
> Specifying something in advance does not mean that all inputs are
> ignored.
> You still have to train firemen even though you are not sure if they
> will arrive at a drowning or an electrocution or a fire.
> Their services are describable in advance even if you do not know what
> is on fire.
> The inputs will be used to guide the process and it may take a very
> large specification in this case - most of which is not written.
> Their training and experience builds a model in their minds that they
> draw on.
> It could be documented with all of the possible input values identified
> and it could then be used to train new firemen.
>
> It would never be completely finished since new input values would
> always appear and have to be evaluated.
> If perfect understanding of all possible future inputs was a requirement
>
> for models, then we would never model anything of reasonable complexity.
>
>
>> John Sowa
>>
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--
________________________________________
"When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us." -- Alexander Graham Bell
________________________________________
Toby Considine
Chair, OASIS oBIX TC http://www.oasis-open.org
Toby.Considine@xxxxxxxxx
Phone: (919)619-2104
blog: www.NewDaedalus.com

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