SOA Glossary

This glossary supports the following titles:

SOA: Principles of Service Design (ISBN: 01323 44823, Prentice Hall)

Service-Oriented Architecture: Concepts, Technology, and Design (ISBN: 0131858580, Prentice Hall)

Service-Oriented Architecture: A Field Guide to Integrating XML & Web Services (ISBN: 0131 428985, Prentice Hall)

For more information about this book series, visit: www.soabooks.com

service activity

The chain of message exchanges carried out in support of the execution of a specific task or business process is referred to as a service activity. There are primitive and complex variations of a service activity. A primitive service activity generally maps to a single data exchange, much like a point-to-point interaction, whereas a complex service activity is usually associated with the message exchanges that occur across a composition of services. Within modern SOA environments, a service activity is generally considered by default to be a complex service activity.

It is important to note that a service activity only represents the exchange of message data between services. When mapping out a service activity, the data processing (or any additional message transmissions or data exchanges) that occur within service boundaries are not displayed. This level of abstraction is in support of the Service Abstraction design principle that may limit awareness as to the nature of the underlying processing of services participating in compositions.