OK, I stand to get shot for shoddy vocabulary, but here's
my €0.02...
Surely the only entity that binds with the service at "run
time" (an instance of the service being provided) is an
"agent", not the "end-user"? The user "binds" with a
contract for the delivery of a service, and is not
partiucularly interested with the technology of the
service invocation or technological "instantiation" of
that service.
This distinction would fit with the two-level model we
discussed on call
User* ------- Contract ------- Service
Agent ------ Invocation ----- Service instance
* user in the UML sense, any human or other "actor" with
an interface to a system.
Peter
___________________________________
On Thu, 07 Apr 2005 12:21:35 -0400
Don Flinn <> wrote:
> Greg
>
>Following the concept in the "Web Services Architecture"
>specification
> we should should separate the owner (human), from the
>agent that is
> defined in that spec as software. This is implied in
>your definition 2.
> The spec further divides the owner and agent into a
>requester and
> provider.
>
> Putting those pieces together:
>
> An Agent is a software program acting on behalf of an
>owner.
> (Note that there can be indirection in the control by
>the owner. For
> example, the owner might control the agent by means of
>policy, directly
> invoke the agent, put control directly into the agent
>code, etc.)
>
> A Service Consumer is an agent that wishes to interact
>with a service.
>
> I would lean more to the former spec's use of Requester
>Agent rather
> than Service Consumer since the request might not be
>successful and thus
> not consumed.
>
> Symmetry seem to demand similar constructs on the
>service side.
>
> Don
>
> On Thu, 2005-04-07 at 16:23 +0200, Gregory A. Kohring
>wrote:
>> Matthew,
>>
>> OK, here a fewer other choices which might be deemed
>>more
>> "respectful"...
>>
>> Service Consumer:
>>
>> 1) End-user of a service.
>>
>> 2) An agent which, acting on behalf of its owner, uses a
>>service.
>>
>> 3) An entity which utilizes a service
>>
>> 4) An entity which consumes the product or information
>>produced by a
>> service.
>>
>>
>> Note all of these definitions depend upon the definition
>>of the
>> term "service". Have we agreed on this already? Perhaps
>>we should
>> start there first...
>>
>>
>> -- Greg
>>
>>
>>
>> Matthew MacKenzie wrote:
>> > I think services deserve respect, lets try not to
>>exploit them :-)
>> >
>> > Gregory A. Kohring wrote:
>> >
>> >> Thomas,
>> >>
>> >> Perhaps one should use a somewhat broader definition
>>which captures
>> >> the human user as well:
>> >>
>> >> Service Consumer: An entity which exploits a service.
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> -- Greg
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> Thomas Erl wrote:
>> >>
>> >>> Now that we've decided on the term "service
>>consumer" it may be
>> >>> useful to formally define it. The term "consumer" is
>>used by the WS-I
>> >>> Basic Profile wherein it is simply defined as
>>"Software that invokes
>> >>> an instance."
>> >>>
>> >>> Thomas
>> >>>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >
>>
>>
> --
> Don Flinn
> President, Flint Security LLC
> Tel: 781-856-7230
>Fax: 781-631-7693
> e-mail:
> http://flintsecurity.com
>
