A Model-driven Approach to Service Policies

A Service represents an underlying capability offered by a service provider. A service description describes two facets of a service – the service functionality (capability onoffer) and the terms at which the service is offered (terms of offer). The capability onoffer satisfies the goal of a service consumer under the constraints of the terms of offer. Service Policies are used to define the terms of offer of a service offering. Policies could potentially apply to service-level, domain-level or technical (infrastructural) aspects. In this paper, we present a systematic model-driven development approach to deal with service policies from the perspective of a service provider. Our approach addresses the entire development spectrum of service policies. It addresses definition of service policies using visual models and attaching these policy models to service capability description models. It also addresses transforming these policy models to executable specifications and finally enforcing these policies during service invocation.