This page covers work on:
Service definitions (and other service related artefacts) are defined in the SWIM reference glossary.
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Service definition | A document, issued by a community of interest, used to harmonize service implementations. |
| Service description | Information needed in order to use, or consider using, a service. |
| Service overview | A set of information service metadata intended to promote service discovery and an initial evaluation of the information service characteristics. |
It is important to disambiguate the terms as they share some commonalities in purpose and scope. It is possible to represent the commonalities and differences as follows:
| Term | purpose | produced by | used by | concerns | contains | can be registered |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Service definition | harmonize service implementations | a community of interest (collaboratively) | service provider | type of service | service metadata | yes |
| Service description | in order to use a service consider using a service | service provider | service consumer | service instance | service metadata | yes |
| Service overview | initial evaluation of the information service characteristics | service provider | service consumer | service instance | service metadata | yes (once ready) |
Note: Service overviews "promote service discovery" according to the definition. However, this ability is not confined to service overviews. The SWIM Registry promotes service discovery.