Jon Collins, over at the Technology Garden, had a post today What characterises a service? He recounts gathering a list of requirements for a good service and gives the following list:
- Value
- Reusability
- Meaningfulness
- Autonomy
- Independence
- Contract
- Uniqueness
This made me wonder again about the additional characteristics a good decision service might exhibit - clearly it should exhibit all these, but what else. In the spirit of the original post then:
- Consistency - always makes the same decision when presented with the same data
- Agility - can be rapidly and easily changed, ideally by the business
- Precision - makes the best decision possible, given the available historical data, trends and other restrictions
- Demonstrability - makes decisions in a way that can be clearly explained and demonstrated to others
- Compliance - follows the regulations and policies in force at the time
Any others come to mind?
Technorati Tags: business agility, decision service, SOA
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Nice. I've read through the descriptions and the comments on decision services, and I don't have a problem with the concept in principle, as long as it doesn't break the rules of ensuring cohesion while minimising coupling between services (Yourdon and Constantine, 1975 ;) ) Otherwise, one might end up with a solution that is architecturally pure, yet runs lke a dog...
With reference to the characteristics, might I refer the good gentleman to my own list, from http://www.itasaservice.com, not to compare but as a cross reference. With this in mind I would perhaps add security, the ability to provision and account for use, and manageability, i.e. the recognition that some intervention will be required (manual or otherwise) to configure and monitor the service.
Phew. I think my list needs updating!
All the best, Jon