Ontology Requirements for SOA
December 11, 2007
By: James Odell and Harsh Sharma, OMG SOA SIG Co-Chairs
Agenda

Vocabulary or Taxonomy or Ontology?

Ontology of Domain specific Services

Need for SOA Taxonomy -- and Ontology

Some food for thought/action items
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Vocabulary or Taxonomy or an Ontology?
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
Taxonomy
A structured collection of Terms, generally hierarchical,
that is used for both classification and navigation
Vocabulary
Business and/or IT Terms and associated Rules written in
Natural Language, understood across the enterprise, partners,
customers.…
OO, Information Models (Class Diagrams,
Conceptual, Logical, Physical,
Dimensional Models, XML Schema
Models…)
Bottom line: A good Vocabulary
can lead to better Ontologies
Do we need Service Taxonomy & Ontology?

Service Taxonomy



A Service Ontology may:



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
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
Business
Goals
Business
Rules
Business Service Technical Service ESB
Portfolio
Portfolio
Components
Resources
!
?
→
F
F
F
F
F
F
Business Processes
Orchestrations
Business
Services
Technical
Services
(Diagram adapted from
Proforma Corp)
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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.
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.oasisopen.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=soa-rm
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Example: “Contract Net” Interaction Protocol
A bidding phase establishes a “contract” between a
requester and provider.
Provider
Requester
Call for proposal
Bid / (no bid)
Award / (no award)
Confirm / (decline)
Proceed (abort)
W3C WSA - The Service-Oriented Perspective
12
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.
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.
OASIS - Stakeholders and Participants
15
OASIS - Needs and Capabilities
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.
16
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.
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.
Example Process
Poles
Transformer
Delivery
Truck
Dig Holes
Cable
Install
Poles
Install
Transformer
Transformer
Installer
Test
Pull Cable
Tester
Post Hole
Digger
Post Hole
Worker
Post
Installer
Installer
Worker
Cable
Puller
Cable
Worker
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Ontology driven with adaptive source mapping
Resource
Instance
Relationship
Resource
Type
Relationship
relation
0..*
1 parent
relation 0..*
1
subtype
Resource
parent
composition
Type
dependency
connection
substitution
suggestion
compatibility
constraints
…
resource
classifier
1..*
classified
instance
0..*
relation
0..*
parent 1
0..* relation
1
composition
Resource
parent
connection
Instance
substitution
compatibility
constraints
…
Part #123
Acme Corp
Shipping cost
Part #123
Widget, Inc
Packaging cost
Part #123
Widget, Inc
Tariff
Part #994
Widget, Inc
Container cost
EDI, Web Service, SOA, EDA, EAI, …
enabled by adapters NetManage, Web Services, …
GPSC
I2
...
SAP NA
Oracle NA SAP EU Oracle EU
Existing applications and databases
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.
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
Contact Info:
email@jamesodell.com
Harsh_sharma@omg.org
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