D-AG0008: "is coherent and consistent in its definition"

Goal 8 of the web services architecture is stated as follows:

	"is coherent and consistent in its definition"

Following Daniel's lead, we have two questions to ask of this goal:

1. Is the proposed text above sufficiently clear, concise and intelligible
to serve its purpose?

2. What are the critical success factors that we need to achieve this goal?

The only issue I have regarding the wording is whether we should add
something to the effect that the architecture shall be "complete" or
"self-contained" -- when we look at the use cases for web services, any
technologies required to implement them should be part of the architecture.

I believe that simplicity is a part of coherency, but there is a separate
goal (D-AG0005) for that, so I don't think it needs further elaboration
here.

Regarding CSFs, I believe that a visualization in the form of a two
dimensional diagram of the architectural components and the relationships
between them is a top-level CSF.  This would preferably be a simple
"stack"-type picture that could be understood by a wide audience, rather
than something more formal such as a UML class diagram.

The only quantitative metrics that come to mind are from the OOAD world and
focus on simplicity, so I don't think they belong in this goal.  I have
mentioned one qualitative metric for completeness above.  Other questions
that come to mind are:

"Does the architecture support the concepts used in commonly accepted design
patterns?" [coherency]

"Is there a small number (preferably one) way that a given set of
architecural components may be combined to achieve a particular
functionality." [consistency]

Please share any comments regarding the wording of this goal and appropriate
CSFs.

Cheers,
Tim

Received on Tuesday, 12 March 2002 13:09:46 UTC