Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
ing track of all repair orders, customers, users and user locations. The field of
application of the PhoneMob enterprise specification might state properties of
a franchised business to which the enterprise specification applies, for example
indicating that this is not, and will never be, a safety critical business system.
2.2 Identifying Roles
A community is, in essence, a collaboration; the objects fulfilling its roles
agree that their objective is to achieve a stated business purpose. In simple
cases, the parties performing roles in the contract, and the behaviour expressed
in it, can remain the same throughout its lifetime. Alternatively, the contract
may define behaviour that modifies the community membership, or changes
details of its behaviour. One way of modifying behaviour dynamically is to
define mutable policies (see chapter 10) for the community. Note that the
community concept can be used to model the structure of a particular orga-
nization, or a collaboration between different organizations stated in terms of
business contracts, service level agreements (SLAs) or as a federation between
different legislative domains (see chapter 11).
«EV_Community»
Phone Repair
has role
«EV_Role»
Phone Repair
Provider
«EV_Role»
User
«EV_Role»
Customer
«EV_Role»
Logistics
Provider
«EV_Role»
Phone
Supplier
«EV_Role»
Bank
FIGURE 2.2: The business and its partners.
Figure 2.2 shows the roles involved in the top-level view of the PhoneMob
business.
1
This first representation deals primarily with the positioning of the
business in its environment. There is a role for the business as a whole (called
the Phone Repair Provider) and roles for the main external players with whom
the business deals | its customers, suppliers, banks and the PhoneMob's sub-
contractors, such as the logistics suppliers. When using UML4ODP, these roles
1
In this topic, we have chosen to use the hat as an icon for role, rather than the theatrical
mask suggested in the UML4ODP standard; we feel this icon and the metaphor of \wearing
a hat" are more immediately recognizable.
