Service-Oriented System Engineering Research Articles

A method engineering perspective for service-oriented system engineering

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to consider the method engineering perspective for service-oriented system engineering (SOSE). A number of SOSE methods have been proposed in both academia and industry. Given this, many intuitive, common questions arise. To answer these questions, many comparison frameworks have been developed. Each of which has considered certain methodological perspectives. However, less attention has been given to the method engineering (ME) perspective. The authors argue that this perspective would answer the question “what ME to apply in order to produce SOSE methods that themselves produce quality services at different levels of abstraction and SBAs”. This research question is further decomposed into other questions; the main one is “whether the existing ME do apply to service orientation”. Answering such a question would lead to either developing SOSE methods by using the existing ME or developing a new ME or framework for the specifics of SOSE. Design/methodology/approach – This work first provides a literature review on ME approaches and techniques; then, it compares a sample of existing SOSE methods with respect to their ME within a comparison framework that comprises a set of relevant properties of a solution that would be provided by an SOSE method, namely, service-oriented architecture (SOA) adoption, quality of services and ME; and finally, it discusses the applicability of the existing ME to SOSE. Findings – Strengths and weaknesses of the existing methods with respect to the aforementioned criteria, in addition to SOSE methodology open issues, were identified. The comparison has shown that while the existing SOSE methods have proved their success in a specific task, they still present some weaknesses. Therefore, it is better to benefit from the advantages of the existing ME techniques, notable method fragments, even if they need some alteration. Research limitations/implications – While this work has many open issues related to SOSE methods with respect to ME, it could be further developed in many directions by exploring the open issues. For instance, the generation of a new ME technique and application of this new ME technique to the existing SOSE methods to see to what extent the existing methods may be situational. Practical implications – This work has practical implications, as it provides a better understanding of different views of SOSE methods, and assists the method engineers in deciding which ME technique is most suitable to their situation. Social implications – The produced artifact provides a research roadmap toward SOSE ME. Originality/value – None of the existing comparison frameworks for SOSE methods has considered the criteria such as SOA adoption and ME techniques. Indeed, ME techniques and approaches would allow better reuse of the existing proven fragments of methods.

Exploring service-oriented system engineering challenges: a systematic literature review

Service-oriented system engineering (SOSE) has drawn increasing attention since service-oriented computing was introduced in the beginning of this decade. A large number of SOSE challenges that call for special software engineering efforts have been proposed in the research community. Our goal is to gain insight into the current status of SOSE research issues as published to date. To this end, we conducted a systematic literature review exploring SOSE challenges that have been claimed between January 2000 and July 2008. This paper presents the results of the systematic review as well as the empirical research method we followed. In this review, of the 729 publications that have been examined, 51 were selected as primary studies, from which more than 400 SOSE challenges were elicited. By applying qualitative data analysis methods to the extracted data from the review, we proved our hypotheses about the classification scheme. We are able to conclude that the SOSE challenges can be classified along two dimensions: (a) based on themes (or topics) that they cover and (b) based on characteristics (or types) that they reveal. By analyzing the distribution of the SOSE challenges on the topics and types in the years 2000–2008, we are able to point out the trend in SOSE research activities. The findings of this review further provide empirical evidence for establishing future SOSE research agendas.

Service-oriented system engineering (SOSE) and its applications to embedded system development

In the past few years, we witnessed a rapid progress in service-oriented computing (SOC), which represents a new computing paradigm. SOC changes the way we develop and use software and hardware. Major enabling techniques, including service-oriented architecture (SOA), service-oriented enterprise (SOE), service-oriented infrastructure (SOI), Web services (WS), and associated protocols and standards are being established. This paper focuses on the system engineering issues and how these engineering issues manifested in SOA development processes. SOSE differs from traditional system engineering because it emphasizes on reusability, dynamic and adaptive nature, and unique model-driven approach.