Aspect-Based Variability Model for Cross-Organizational Features in Service Networks

Different clients have different needs, therefore adaptability and variability are crucial properties for service compositions to fit those varying requirements. This is hard to achieve in a cross-organizational context where services are implemented and deployed by different organizations (e.g. companies, administrative domains, . . . ): a feature, for example security, cannot be condensed into a single module that is applicable to all the different services. This paper proposes an aspect-based variability model for representing cross-organizational features in service networks such as systems of systems or service supply chains. We argue that cross-organizational features should be managed in a multi-layered architecture, distinguishing between policy and mechanism. Such a multi-layered architecture is completely lacking in AOSD currently. Based on this tenet, we first describe a technology-independent feature ontology that is well-defined for a domain or a specific service network and map it to an aspect-based feature implementation.