Ontology Requirements for SOA

December 11, 2007

By: James Odell and Harsh Sharma, OMG SOA SIG Co-Chairs

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Vocabulary or Taxonomy or Ontology?

Ontology of Domain specific Services

Need for SOA Taxonomy -- and Ontology

Some food for thought/action items

Agenda

Vocabulary or Taxonomy or an Ontology?

OO, Information Models (Class Diagrams, Conceptual, Logical, Physical, Dimensional Models, XML Schema Models…)

OO, Information Models (Class Diagrams, Conceptual, Logical, Physical, Dimensional Models, XML Schema Models…)

Taxonomy

A structured collection of Terms, generally hierarchical, that is used for both classification and navigation

Taxonomy

A structured collection of Terms, generally hierarchical, that is used for both classification and navigation

Ontology

-Ontologies use richer semantic Relationships among Terms and Attributes, as well as strict rules about how to specify Terms and Relationships - Because Ontologies do more than just control a vocabulary, they are thought of as knowledge representation

Can be used by people, with emphasis on machine interpretability to exchange domain information

Ontology

-Ontologies use richer semantic Relationships among Terms and Attributes, as well as strict rules about how to specify Terms and Relationships - Because Ontologies do more than just control a vocabulary, they are thought of as knowledge representation

Can be used by people, with emphasis on machine interpretability to exchange domain information

VocabularyBusiness and/or IT Terms and associated Rules written in Natural Language, understood across the enterprise, partners,customers.…

VocabularyBusiness and/or IT Terms and associated Rules written in Natural Language, understood across the enterprise, partners,customers.…

Bottom line: A good Vocabulary can lead to better Ontologies

Bottom line: A good Vocabulary can lead to better Ontologies

Do we need Service Taxonomy & Ontology?

Service Taxonomy Coupled with a Vocabulary of Terms, a Service Taxonomy can

facilitate common understanding of Services available (described in Natural Language) across ‘Consumers’ and ‘Providers’ of Services

Help explain to business stakeholders what Services are available to support given Business Processes

A Service Ontology may: Enable discovery and execution of Services by ‘Software Agents’

resulting in further automation of SOA based platforms (machine interpretation is a key feature)

A Service Taxonomy could be a precursor of a formal Service Ontology

For automation (Straight Through Processing -STP) and scalability of SOA Event, Process and ‘domain’ Ontologies are equally relevant

OMG Activity/Interest around SOA and Domain Ontologies

SOA SIG members looking to work with other WGs to develop Ontology of Services

OMG Insurance WG is looking to define ‘Business Services’ for Insurance Leverage SOA Ontology Developing Business Vocabulary and Ontology of Property

and Casualty Insurance Support Claim management capability

OMG Life Sciences WG looking to develop Service & Process Ontologies

Decision management for candidate drug Targets Reasoning engines to use standard ontologies for Gene

Expression/Proteomics research OMG Healthcare DTF in partnership with HL-7 defining

Services for Healthcare (http://hssp.wikispaces.com/ )

SOA Overview

Technical Service Portfolio

Components ResourcesESBBusiness Service Portfolio

Orchestrations

Business Processes

Business Goals

!? →

Business Rules

F

F

F

F

F

F

BusinessServices

TechnicalServices (Diagram adapted

from Proforma Corp)6

Where is Ontology needed for SOA?

Architecture view Service Description Model Service Visibility Model Interacting with Services Model Policies and Contracts Model Governance Model …

Business view Stakeholders and Participants Model Needs and Capabilities Model Resources Model Social Structure Model …

OASIS - Service Description Model

For SOA to enable efficient connectivity between providers and consumers, descriptions must provide sufficient information to achieve visibility between the provider and consumer and to support continued interaction.

OASIS - Service Visibility Model

SOA participants need to visible to each other using whatever means are appropriate. OASIS analyses visibility in terms of awareness, willingness, and reachability.

SOA participants need to visible to each other using whatever means are appropriate. OASIS analyses visibility in terms of awareness, willingness, and reachability.

W3C WSA - Interacting with Services (with agents)

W3C, Web Services Architecture, W3C Working Group Note, February 11, 2004. http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/NOTE-ws-arch-20040211/

OASIS, Reference Model for Service Oriented Architecture 1.0, Committee Specification 1, August 2, 2006. http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=soa-rm

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A bidding phase establishes a “contract” between a requester and

provider.

Call for proposal

Bid / (no bid)

Award / (no award)

Confirm / (decline)

Proceed (abort)

Provider Requester

Example: “Contract Net” Interaction Protocol

W3C WSA - The Service-Oriented Perspective

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OASIS - Policies and Contracts

Policy - a constraint or condition on the use, deployment, or description of an owned entity as defined by any participant.

Contract - Agreements on policies between participants.

Policy - a constraint or condition on the use, deployment, or description of an owned entity as defined by any participant.

Contract - Agreements on policies between participants.

OASIS - SOA Governance

Decisions that are pertinent to the adoption, use and evolution of an SOA are arrived at and who has the decision rights to make such decisions.

Decisions that are pertinent to the adoption, use and evolution of an SOA are arrived at and who has the decision rights to make such decisions.

OASIS - Stakeholders and Participants

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OASIS - Needs and Capabilities

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Capability - A resource that may be used by a service provider to achieve a real world effect on behalf of a service consumer.Need - A need is a measurable requirement that a service participant is actively seeking to satisfy. The aspects of a need are that it can be measured and that it belongs to a participant.

Capability - A resource that may be used by a service provider to achieve a real world effect on behalf of a service consumer.Need - A need is a measurable requirement that a service participant is actively seeking to satisfy. The aspects of a need are that it can be measured and that it belongs to a participant.

OASIS - Resources Model

A resource is any entity of some perceived value, where the value may be in the function it performs or something intrinsic in its nature.

A resource is any entity of some perceived value, where the value may be in the function it performs or something intrinsic in its nature.

OASIS - Managing Resources Model

Management is the control of the use, configuration, and availability of resources in accordance with the policies of the stakeholders involved.

Management is the control of the use, configuration, and availability of resources in accordance with the policies of the stakeholders involved.

InstallTransformer

Pull Cable

Test

InstallPolesDig Holes

PolesTrans-former

Cable

Post HoleDigger

PostInstaller

CablePuller

Post HoleWorker

InstallerWorker

CableWorker

TransformerInstaller

Tester

DeliveryTruck

Example Process

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GPSCGPSCExisting applications and databasesExisting applications and databases

I2I2 . . .. . . SAP SAP NANA OracleOracle NA NA SAP SAP EUEU OracleOracle EU EU

Part #123Acme CorpShipping cost

Part #123Widget, IncPackaging cost

Part #123Widget, IncTariff

Part #994Widget, IncContainer cost

EDI, Web Service, SOA, EDA, EAI, …EDI, Web Service, SOA, EDA, EAI, …enabled by adapters NetManage, Web Services, …enabled by adapters NetManage, Web Services, …

ResourceInstance

ResourceType 0..*1..*

classifiedinstance

resourceclassifier

ResourceInstance

Relationship

ResourceType

Relationship

subtypecompositiondependencyconnectionsubstitutionsuggestioncompatibility constraints…

compositionconnectionsubstitutioncompatibility constraints…

relationrelation

relationrelation 0..*0..*0..*

0..* 11

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parent parent

parentparent

Ontology driven with adaptive source mapping

OASIS - Social Structure Model

A social structure (sometimes identified as social institutions) embodies some of the cultural aspects that characterize the relationships and actions among a group of participants.

A social structure (sometimes identified as social institutions) embodies some of the cultural aspects that characterize the relationships and actions among a group of participants.

Some food for thought/action items

OMG SOA SIG, Insurance WG looking to partner with Ontology, BPM (and other interested WGs inside and outside OMG) experts Establish a team of experts to:

Provide guidance on relevant standards, naming conventions, formats (XMI, RDF, OWL…??) and managing ontologies

Develop Best Practices/Policy document for Ontology development

Repository of Taxonomies and Ontolgies to promote reuse and avoid redundant work

A Library of ‘Reference Ontologies’ like Time, Currency, Exchange Codes that could be used elsewhere to facilitate a modular design

Common modules and domain specific to speed up development Repository also accessible via a web front-end to facilitate

discovery of available Ontologies Repository to provide additional interfaces to upload, retrieve

Ontologies

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Contact Info:

email@jamesodell.com

Harsh_sharma@omg.org