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Management Services - A Framework for Design
Hans Weigand
1
, Paul Johannesson
2
, Birger Andersson
2
,
Jeewanie Jayasinghe Arachchige
1
, and Maria Bergholtz
2
1
Tilburg University, P.O.Box 90153,
5000 LE Tilburg, The Netherlands
{H.Weigand,J.JayasingheArachchig}@uvt.nl
2
Royal Institute of Technology
Department of Computer and Systems Sciences, Sweden
{pajo,ba,maria}@dsv.su.se
Abstract.
The Service-Oriented Architecture has rapidly become the de facto
standard for modern information systems. Although recently considerable re-
search attention has been paid to the management of services, several gaps can
still be observed. Service management as far as it is automated is either mixed up
with the operational service logic itself, or handled in a separate not service-
oriented system, such as a BAM platform. In addition, there is a growing busi-
ness demand for value-driven service management. In this paper, a general
framework for management service design is presented that covers both business
services and software services and is rooted in the business ontology REA, ex-
tended with a REA management ontology. The framework is applied to two dif-
ferent case studies, one in the Italian wine industry and one related to a robot
cleaner.
Keywords:
service design, REA, autonomic computing, management control.
1 Introduction
The Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) has rapidly become the de facto standard
for modern information systems. Having started with a focus on service description
and discovery, SOA research shifted its attention to service composition in the second
phase. The next phase, according to [13] in 2007, would focus on service manage-
ment defined as “the control and monitoring of SOA-based applications throughout
their lifecycle”. The most prominent functions of service management include SLA
management, auditing, monitoring and troubleshooting, dynamic resource provision-
ing, service lifecycle management (e.g. versioning) and scalability/extensibility.
However, although considerable work has been done on these topics in the last few
years, results so far are fragmented and limited. Early standards related to service
management (MUWS/MOWS; see oasis.org) have become obsolete.
Several research gaps can be observed. Service management as far as it is auto-
mated is often mixed up with the operational service logic itself, or it is handled in a
separate not service-oriented system, such as a BAM (Business Activity Monitoring)
platform. In addition, service management, including business process management,
is still mainly focused on execution correctness [1], whereas there is a growing
