Business Services employ a logical flow that can be subcatagorized.
A Business Service is a business function whose execution can be adapted
at runtime based on business policy and user context and is defined by three
primary elements:
- Business Metadata: Business policy information
used to dynamically tailor the execution of the specific business function
for a single instance
- Canonical Data Model - a standardized
representation of data required to dynamically select and tailor the execution
of a business function
- Business Function - One or more services
that are selected dynamically based on business policy information, and whose
execution leverages a subset of the canonical data model associated with its
function. A Business Function service implementation may range in complexity
from simple atomic services to composite services, embodying business processes.
Characteristics of a business service
- Designed at business level to represent
a discrete business function
- Uses business policies and meta data to
enable flexible, adaptable behavior
- Leverages Reference Industry Models to
simplify interoperability across disparate internal and external systems
- Provisioned through multiple communication
channels (Web, B2B, IVR, and so forth)
- Derived from disparate IT resources
- Built using Web service and industry standards
Benefits of a business service
- Solution flexibility at lower cost and
effort
- Greater reuse of IT assets
- Faster solution time-to-market
- Incremental solution approach that lowers
risk