Practice: Service Specification
This practice describes how to specify services, their supporting elements, and the interactions in which they are involved. When used in the context of a services delivery process, the list of candidate services from the Service Identification practice provides the input to this practice.
Purpose

The Service Specification practice delivers specifications of services and their supporting concepts that can be used to effectively implement service-oriented systems which satisfy business requirements. These service specification assets generally can be reused on later projects.

This practice:

  • Improves quality by helping achieve completeness and correctness of services specifications.
  • Reduces time-to-value by delivering a thorough blueprint of the services that are to be implemented. This blueprint:
    • Reduces scrap and rework during the rest of the service lifecycle
    • .
    • Provides specification assets that can be reused on subsequent projects.
  • Improves audit results by creating work products that can be traced back to business motivators unambiguously.
How to read this practice

The Service Specification practice has one main goal: to properly document and specify a service that has been deemed worthy of exposure, according to the results of Service Litmus Tests. The service is documented by using SoaML. Therefore, begin by familiarizing yourself with the following SoaML concepts and corresponding examples:

Also, review the following key concepts:

After reviewing all of that, read the tasks and corresponding guidance involved in service specification.

As you work through the tasks and guidance, examine the SoaML sample model to see how the elements created during the tasks might be integrated into a service model. Follow the service model structure guidelines to stay on track with respect to organizing your service model.

For step-by-step instructions on how to adopt this practice, see How to Adopt the Service Specification Practice.

Additional Information
Tool Mentor: Build a SoaML Service Model Using the SoaML Template is the entry point into a bundle of tool mentors that collectively describe how to build an SoaML-based service model by using IBM® Rational® Software Architect. This tool mentor provides an overview description of a process for using the tool to create the model, as well as callouts to the other tool mentors.

Here is the Service Specification Workflow.

Relationships