A comparison framework for service-oriented software engineering approaches: Issues and solutions

Purpose - Many service-oriented software engineering (SOSE) methods from industry and academia claim their compliance with SOA and SO, but there is a lack of framework to assess the existing methods or to provide new ones. First, the paper questions: (Q1) to what extent an approach would consider the three aspect: service, composition, and management to deliver software solutions that are conformed to SO and SOA principles; (Q2) to what extent an approach would consider the aggregates of a method, including representation techniques, assisting tools, and inspection techniques to assess the delivered solution (service and composition), in addition to the process; and (Q3) to what extent an approach would consider the alignment of business and IT through the application of model-driven development by using standards such as model-driven architecture. Then, the paper compares four generic approaches: top-down, bottom-up, green-field, and meet-in-the-middle, within a framework, to highlight their strengths and weaknesses. Finally, the paper aims to propose a business-oriented approach that focuses on the value a business can add to its customers, whereby the value must be specified in a contract to be largely re-used. Design/methodology/approach - This work develops a framework as an abstract model for SOSE generic methods. Then, it uses the framework as an analytical study to compare the generic methods and come up with research issues and a new method for SOSE. Findings - A set of guidelines that a SOSE method develops should consider when selecting or developing a new method. Research limitations/implications - Comparison of existing SOSE methods within the findings of the proposed framework. The paper has theoretical implications as the open issues provide a research roadmap towards the realization of SOA in accordance with a maturity model. Practical implications - This has practical implications as it: provides a better understanding of the approaches, as they are ambiguously used by the existing methods; and assists developers in deciding an approach having the necessary knowledge related to its process, strengths and weaknesses. Originality/value - None of the existing comparison framework has raised the level of abstraction up to generic methods such as top-down, green-filed, meet-in-the-middle and bottom-up.