Service Identification Methods: A Systematic Literature Review

Many service identification methods (SIMs) have been proposed to support the determination of services that are appropriate for use in an SOA. However, these SIMs vary in terms of analysis objectives, identification procedures and service hierarchies. Due to the heterogeneity of the SIMs, practitioners often face the difficulty of choosing a SIM that copes with available resources and fits their needs. To gain a holistic view of existing SIMs and to support the selection of the right SIM, in this paper we present the results of a systematic literature review. A total number of 237 studies were examined, of which 30 studies were selected as primary studies. From these studies, we identified different types of inputs, outputs and processes used by the existing SIMs. Based on these results, we created a matrix which can be used in three different ways for practitioners to select among alternative SIMs.