A Framework for Understanding the Vision, Goals, Instruments and Uses of Software Services

Software services have been suggested for use in several areas such as business-to-business communication, system integration and as an enabler for virtual enterprises. However, it has not been clear if the use of services in these different areas is guided by a common vision, and if they share goals and technical background. By introducing a framework that relates the vision and goals of software services to different categories of service use, this work presents an overview of the instruments needed for the development of software services. The framework spans across four interrelated parts; the vision, goals, instruments and categories of service use. Firstly a single vision for software services is proposed. This vision is then divided into the three goals of modularity, integration and discovery. Furthermore, the high-level instruments needed to achieve each goal are presented. The use of services is classified into four categories depending on reach and extent i.e.: point wise-internal, point wise-external, infrastructure-internal and infrastructureexternal use. The framework presented in this paper shows how these categories of service utilise the defined instruments. As an example of framework use, the instruments needed to create a process-centric service infrastructure for intra -enterprise use is proposed