Talk:Service (systems architecture)

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Contents 1 Proposed Deletion 2 Importance 3 Redirect 4 Possible Addition

[edit] Proposed Deletion

Deletion of this page (formerly known as Systems Architecture Service) was proposed on the following grounds. "Wikipedia is not a dictionary, which is all this article seems to be. Also, the article does not prove the notability of its topic through reference to multiple reliable sources and I was unable to find such proof via an online search ... most results for "systems architecture service" are either unrelated, Wikipedia mirrors, or trivial."

I believe that by renaming the article and adding a link to the OASIS definition of service in the SOA Reference Model, I have gone some way to addressing these concerns. I have therefore removed the deletion notice, and should welcome further discussion and help in improving this page. --RichardVeryard 07:52, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Importance

There are several articles about services of this kind (see Category:Service-oriented (business computing), but none of them provide a satisfactory explanation of what such a service actually is. While I don't claim that the present edit of this page is adequate for this purpose, I believe it is a reasonable starting point. --RichardVeryard 08:16, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Redirect

I created a redirect from service(Computer Science). There were links to this title. While Systems Architecture is not a pure subtopic of computer science it is an application of computer science and this article provides most of what I would expect to find. If 'service' develops a stricter or different meaning in Computer Science that can be contrasted to what it means in the context of Systems Architecture then it might be reasonable to have a separate page.

It would be ashame to delete this page as it contains valuable and clarifying information in relation to other articles that would otherwise need to repeat the information here to be readable.

[edit] Possible Addition

A Brief History of The Development of Service Based Systems

There are several different *platform* layers. Services exist within the context of the architecture of a system. There are several interconnected systems: the computer operating system , the network, and higher level applications used by an end user who might be a CEO running a business,a molecular biologist, or a kindergarten student. Higher level systems often rely on the lower layers but may only indirectly use a service that is used to comprise the lower level system, while other services may provide the connection or interface between these different platform layers.

Client Server Architecture

Operating System Services Network Operating System Services Database Management Systems

Daemons, background applications running on computer systems, were around before the wide use and concept of service oriented architecture. Many of the daemons on UNIX systems could be considered a service. Notably, one daemon, inetd provided execution and dispatch service on a computer system when a message is received from a network interface on a dedicated network port and provided a mechanism for the efficient management and substitution of some of the daemons that provided operating system and network services. Substitution of the daemon or program to provide a particular service on a dedicated port is key to understanding what the service is.[Is this inetd or the kernel? {CHECK} The Service is the abstract functionality provided by the daemon program rather than the program itself. A service is something distinct from a program, module, function, procedure, library, object, or component all of which may be used to create a service. The service provided by inetd daemon was itself replaced with the Xinetd daemon.

When Microsoft Windows was developed programs analogous to daemons were called Services and there is a module to manage them in the computer management control panel. Viewing a system as divided into services and applications in the system as composed of the system's constituent services was first realized in lower level computer and network operating systems. As a result of an emergent properties of lower level operating and network systems based on services, these lower level systems now provide a service platform. Higher level services depended on the definition of standard protocols like http and generalized languages for data representation like XML combined with widespread dissemination of freely usable APIs to code libraries that very reliably allow new programs to implement the protocols to generate, exchange, and parse data using standard network signals, expressed in a standard format regardless of operating system or programing language.

Higher level systems typically rely on a platform of intermediate systems that rests in turn on top of the computer and network operating systems. Intermediate systems usually include a database management system, a specialized server language and execution environment, and web browser with a script interpreter. The sever language and execution environment usually incorporate a framework which provides a collection of APIs to the services of lower level systems.

A Service model was adopted to implement higher level systems such as those that generate interactive data intensive web pages based on distributed media, or enterprise applications that share common pools of production, customer, human resource, transactional, and financial data. It is with the higher level context that "Services" and "service oriented architecture" is usually discussed. An application that can be broken down into several services and then reunited in a mid-tier application allow a very simple way to reuse components of the application to create others, and also possibly distribute the load of the application onto more hardware over the network.

Following successful use of service oriented architecture in the design of high level systems many lower level systems have been re-factored using a service architecture and successful standards such as XML.

NEEDS LINKS to other articles and trimming of coverage especially near the beginning. NEEDS DATES ! What was the first service, and who created it? Discussion needs a reason why the addition is needed in the article. So many citations are needed that I am reluctant to take it on myself. Needs a few more revisions for better clarity.

Zarthon (talk) 08:28, 2 June 2008 (UTC)