Modeling Services using Contracts: Identifying dependencies in Service-oriented Architectures
T. Estier, Beat Michel, O. Reinhard · 2006
Abstract. Design by contract is a well-established paradigm in software engineering. Bertrand Meyer first introduced the rigorous distinction between the responsibilities of service provider and service consumer for fine grain software artifacts (classes). This paper considers service contracts in the context of service-oriented architecture for complex enterprise information infrastructures. Identifying dependencies between applications with service contracts may help to master the complexity of numerous interconnected information systems and to ease evolution towards a service-oriented architecture. This paper proposes both a model and a methodology to systematically apply the notion of contract for structuring relationships and identifying dependencies between applications in a service oriented architecture. 1