Service Metadata Functional Profile
A service description defines or references the information needed to use, deploy, manage and otherwise control a service. This includes not only the information and behavior models associated with a service to define the service interface but also includes information needed to decide whether the service is appropriate for the current needs of the service consumer. Thus, the service description will also include information such as service reachability, service functionality, and the policies and contracts associated with a service.
The description of service description indicates numerous architectural implications on the Semantic Infrastructure:
Description will change over time and its contents will reflect changing needs and context. This requires the following capabilities:
- mechanisms to support the storage, referencing, and access to normative definitions of one or more versioning schemes that may be applied to identify different aggregations of descriptive information, where the different schemes may be versions of a versioning scheme itself;
- configuration management mechanisms to capture the contents of the each aggregation and apply a unique identifier in a manner consistent with an identified versioning scheme;
- one or more mechanisms to support the storage, referencing, and access to conversion relationships between versioning schemes, and the mechanisms to carry out such conversions.
Description makes use of defined semantics, where the semantics may be used for categorization or providing other property and value information for description classes. This requires the following capabilities:
- semantic models that provide normative descriptions of the utilized terms, where the models may range from a simple dictionary of terms to an ontology showing complex relationships and capable of supporting enhanced reasoning;
- mechanisms to support the storage, referencing, and access to these semantic models;
- configuration management mechanisms to capture the normative description of each semantic model and to apply a unique identifier in a manner consistent with an identified versioning scheme;
- one or more mechanisms to support the storage, referencing, and access to conversion relationships between semantic models, and the mechanisms to carry out such conversions.
Descriptions include reference to policies defining conditions of use and optionally contracts representing agreement on policies and other conditions. This requires the following capabilities (as also enumerated under governance):
- descriptions to enable the policy modules to be visible, where the description includes a unique identifier for the policy and a sufficient, and preferably a machine processible, representation of the meaning of terms used to describe the policy, its functions, and its effects;
- one or more discovery mechanisms that enable searching for policies that best meet the search criteria specified by the service participant; where the discovery mechanism will have access to the individual policy descriptions, possibly through some repository mechanism;
- accessible storage of policies and policy descriptions, so service participants can access, examine, and use the policies as defined.
_ Descriptions include references to metrics which describe the operational characteristics of the subjects being described. This requires the following capabilities (as partially enumerated under governance):_
- the infrastructure monitoring and reporting information on SOA resources;
- possible interface requirements to make accessible metrics information generated or most easily accessed by the service itself;
- mechanisms to catalog and enable discovery of which metrics are available for a described resources and information on how these metrics can be accessed;
- mechanisms to catalog and enable discovery of compliance records associated with policies and contracts that are based on these metrics.
Descriptions of the interactions are important for enabling auditability and repeatability, thereby establishing a context for results and support for understanding observed change in performance or results. This requires the following capabilities:
- one or more mechanisms to capture, describe, store, discover, and retrieve interaction logs, execution contexts, and the combined interaction descriptions;
- one or more mechanisms for attaching to any results the means to identify and retrieve the interaction description under which the results were generated.
Descriptions may capture very focused information subsets or can be an aggregate of numerous component descriptions. Service description is an example of a likely aggregate for which manual maintenance of all aspects would not be feasible. This requires the existence of:
- tools to facilitate identifying description elements that are to be aggregated to assemble the composite description;
- tools to facilitate identifying the sources of information to associate with the description elements;
- tools to collect the identified description elements and their associated sources into a standard, referenceable format that can support general access and understanding;
- tools to automatically update the composite description as the component sources change, and to consistently apply versioning schemes to identify the new description contents and the type and significance of change that occurred.
Descriptions provide up-to-date information on what a resource is, the conditions for interacting with the resource, and the results of such interactions. As such, the description is the source of vital information in establishing willingness to interact with a resource, reachability to make interaction possible, and compliance with relevant conditions of use. This requires the existence of:
- one or more discovery mechanisms that enable searching for described resources that best meet the criteria specified by a service participant, where the discovery mechanism will have access to individual descriptions, possibly through some repository mechanism;
- tools to appropriately track users of the descriptions and notify them when a new version of the description is available.
This Functional Profile includes, but is not limited to, the following capability elaborations:
Derived From Requirements
- Gap Analysis::Interface::002 - Web-based browsing and registration Provide an integrated, web-based environment for model/service registration and browsing.
- Semantic Infrastructure Requirements::Service Discovery and Governance::Administer Services The use of well defined service metadata promotes better discovery and reuse of services during design and run time. Service metadata includes information about service interactions and dependencies. It also includes a classification scheme for organizing services based on business objectives, domain, and usage. It also links services to all the supporting artifacts in the specification and provides a placeholder for conformance statements. This enables better reuse across the enterprise and eliminates redundancy.
- Semantic Infrastructure Requirements::Artifact Management::Artifact Lifecycle Management Artifact lifecycle management and metadata requirements include the ability to: * Manage lifecycle, governance and versioning of the models, content and forms * Establish relationships and dependencies between models, content and forms * Determine provenance, jurisdiction, authority and intellectual property * Create represention and views of the information, realized through the appropriate transforms * Provide access control and other security constraints * Create annotations for better discovery and searching of artifacts * Develop usage scenarios and context for the information * Provide terminology and value set binding The artifacts are bound to the services via the service metadata. The service metadata combined with the artifacts and supporting metadata provide a comprehensive service specification. The artifact management requirements listed above are derived from the following use cases: * caEHR: The caEHR project has adopted ECCF for specifications and CDA documents for interoperability. The caEHR project requirements include the need for an infrastructure for managing all the artifacts generated during specification process, including HL7 models and documents. The caEHR project also intends to publish these artifacts for the community and vendors. The infrastructure needs to support better discovery, making all the relevant information available in the right context. * ONC and other external EHR adopters: ONC has adopted CCD and CCR for meaningful use. All national EHR implementations are expected to support forms and the semantics of these forms play a critical role in interoperability. The semantic infrastructure must provide a mechanism to create, store and manage these forms. * Clinical Trials: Clinical trials use forms to capture clinical information, and the semantics captured by these forms are critical for interoperability and reporting. The semantic infrastructure must provide a mechanism to manage the lifecycle of these forms.
serviceDescriptionModel
Service Model create, destroy, edit, maintain.
Service metadata includes information about service interactions and dependencies.
A service description defines or references the information needed to use, deploy, manage and otherwise control a service. This includes not only the information and behavior models associated with a service to define the service interface but also includes information needed to decide whether the service is appropriate for the current needs of the service consumer. Thus, the service description will also include information such as service reachability, service functionality, and the policies and contracts associated with a service.
The description of service description indicates numerous architectural implications on the SOA 1886 ecosystem:
- Description will change over time and its contents will reflect changing needs and context. This requires the existence of:
- mechanisms to support the storage, referencing, and access to normative definitions of one or more versioning schemes that may be applied to identify different aggregations of descriptive information, where the different schemes may be versions of a versioning scheme itself;
- configuration management mechanisms to capture the contents of the each aggregation and apply a unique identifier in a manner consistent with an identified versioning scheme;
- one or more mechanisms to support the storage, referencing, and access to conversion relationships between versioning schemes, and the mechanisms to carry out such conversions.
- Description makes use of defined semantics, where the semantics may be used for categorization or providing other property and value information for description classes. This requires the existence of:
- semantic models that provide normative descriptions of the utilized terms, where the models may range from a simple dictionary of terms to an ontology showing complex relationships and capable of supporting enhanced reasoning;
- mechanisms to support the storage, referencing, and access to these semantic models;
- configuration management mechanisms to capture the normative description of each semantic model and to apply a unique identifier in a manner consistent with an identified versioning scheme;
- one or more mechanisms to support the storage, referencing, and access to conversion relationships between semantic models, and the mechanisms to carry out such conversions.
- Descriptions include reference to policies defining conditions of use and optionally contracts representing agreement on policies and other conditions. This requires the existence of (as also enumerated under governance):
- descriptions to enable the policy modules to be visible, where the description includes a unique identifier for the policy and a sufficient, and preferably a machine processible, representation of the meaning of terms used to describe the policy, its functions, and its effects;
- one or more discovery mechanisms that enable searching for policies that best meet the search criteria specified by the service participant; where the discovery mechanism will have access to the individual policy descriptions, possibly through some repository mechanism;
- accessible storage of policies and policy descriptions, so service participants can access, examine, and use the policies as defined.
- Descriptions include references to metrics which describe the operational characteristics of the subjects being described. This requires the existence of (as partially enumerated under governance):
- the infrastructure monitoring and reporting information on SOA resources;
- possible interface requirements to make accessible metrics information generated or most easily accessed by the service itself;
- mechanisms to catalog and enable discovery of which metrics are available for a described resources and information on how these metrics can be accessed;
- mechanisms to catalog and enable discovery of compliance records associated with policies and contracts that are based on these metrics.
- Descriptions of the interactions are important for enabling auditability and repeatability, thereby establishing a context for results and support for understanding observed change in performance or results. This requires the existence of:
- one or more mechanisms to capture, describe, store, discover, and retrieve interaction logs, execution contexts, and the combined interaction descriptions;
- one or more mechanisms for attaching to any results the means to identify and retrieve the interaction description under which the results were generated.
- Descriptions may capture very focused information subsets or can be an aggregate of numerous component descriptions. Service description is an example of a likely aggregate for which manual maintenance of all aspects would not be feasible. This requires the existence of:
- tools to facilitate identifying description elements that are to be aggregated to assemble the composite description;
- tools to facilitate identifying the sources of information to associate with the description elements;
- tools to collect the identified description elements and their associated sources into a standard, referenceable format that can support general access and understanding;
- tools to automatically update the composite description as the component sources change, and to consistently apply versioning schemes to identify the new description contents and the type and significance of change that occurred.
- Descriptions provide up-to-date information on what a resource is, the conditions for interacting with the resource, and the results of such interactions. As such, the description is the source of vital information in establishing willingness to interact with a resource, reachability to make interaction possible, and compliance with relevant conditions of use. This requires the existence of:
- one or more discovery mechanisms that enable searching for described resources that best meet the criteria specified by a service participant, where the discovery mechanism will have access to individual descriptions, possibly through some repository mechanism;
- tools to appropriately track users of the descriptions and notify them when a new version of the description is available.
webBasedRegistration
Provide an integrated, web-based environment for model/service registration and browsing.
