Classifications and comparisons of service architectural styles

Abstract

Service systems are essential to the execution of business services. When designing a service system, it is important to consider its global architecture to enable optimisation of high-level decision-making. In this paper, based on the analysis of the similarities between software and service systems, a new concept, service architecture, is presented. Service architecture (SA) defines the high-level structure of a service system, including service elements and their co-production relationships. The design quality of SA has a strong effect on the quality of service. Based on the summarisation of various service systems, we present several typical service architectural styles that can be directly reused to facilitate the development of high quality and efficient service systems. These styles are classified into three types, creational, structural and behavioural, based on a set of distinct dimensions. Features, application scenarios, graphical topology and typical cases for each style are then briefly discussed. In addition, comparisons between these styles, especially regarding their non-functional features, are shown. The results of this paper will aid in the study of methodologies for service system development.