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Interoperability Meetings:
Cloud Computing, Semantics, and SOA

Objective of Meeting

This meeting addressed three areas related to interoperability of IT systems: Cloud Computing, Semantics, and SOA. It covered the following topics:

  • Overview of the three Work Groups
  • Open Group Interoperability input to ISO
  • Cloud Interaction Ecosystem Language (CIEL) Workshop
  • Cloud Business Metrics
  • Services Vocabulary

Summary

Overview of the Three Work Groups

This was an open meeting to enable interested delegates to find out about The Open Group's interoperability work groups by describing their composition, way of working, completed work, and current projects. It also served to inform group members of what was happening in areas with which they were not directly concerned.

The session followed the course of the Open Meeting on Interoperability Presentation (see Links below) but with explanations and brief discussions of current activities from the project members that were present.

Open Group Interoperability Input to ISO

ISO/IEC JTC-1 SC38, the ISO committee on Distributed Application Platforms and Services (DAPS), is working on a number of activities concerned with SOA and Cloud Computing. The meeting discussed The Open Group input to this committee on cloud computing vocabulary, cloud computing reference architecture, and the SOA Reference Architecture.

Cloud Interaction Ecosystem Language (CIEL) Workshop

The Cloud Interaction Ecosystems Language (CIEL) project is developing a notation for describing the interaction of cloud in a simple language aimed for use by business users and IT vendors or in-house IT departments to explain and visualize cloud concepts and services easily. It is a graphical notation, backed by formal descriptions of the concepts and attributes portrayed. The workshop reviewed an initial set of core symbols for the notation, and the underlying metadata.

Cloud Business Metrics

The Cloud Business Artifacts (CBA) project of the Cloud Work Group now plans to develop a White Paper on cloud service producer metrics. The conference presentation on Cloud Strategy Adoption Based on the Cloud Lifecycle includes a description of the context for these metrics. The discussion clarified the purpose of the metrics (which measure the producing organization rather than the service itself), and agreed that there is value in the proposal.

The metrics should be relevant to the SOA for Business Technology project, as well as to the Cloud Work Group.

Services Vocabulary

The Open Group has a published an Ontology for SOA standard, and an SOA Reference Architecture standard. There are, however, conflicting uses of service terminology in other Open Group standards, notably TOGAF® and ArchiMate®. The aim of this session was to review the differences in terminology, attempt to resolve the conflicting usages, and flag any areas where resolution appears not to be possible.

The use of terminology in the SOA documents is mostly compatible with that in TOGAF. There is, however, one important difference. The TOGAF concept of service is more restrictive than the SOA concept. This should be raised in the Architecture Forum project working on the next version of TOGAF.

There are some potential differences with ArchiMate. These are, however, also potential areas of difference between TOGAF and ArchiMate. In the first instance, they should be addressed between the TOGAF and ArchiMate Forums. Following this, if there are any differences with usage in the SOA specifications, they can then be addressed.

Outputs

The meeting produced no formal outputs.

Next Steps

The Open Group input to ISO on Cloud and SOA will be further discussed and finalized by email and in web meetings.

The CIEL project team will continue to develop its draft for formal review.

The CBA project will develop the Cloud Producer Metrics paper for review, with the aim of publishing the White Paper at the time of The Open Group conference in Barcelona.

The fact that the TOGAF concept of service is more restrictive than the SOA concept will be raised in the Architecture Forum project working on the next version of TOGAF.

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