SoaML is an open source

Open source

The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...

 specification project from the Object Management Group (OMG

OMG

OMG may refer to:*Oh My goodness, or Oh My Gosh, a common abbreviation used in SMS and Instant Messaging*omg!, a celebrity news and gossip Web site run by Yahoo.com...

), describing a UML

Unified Modeling Language

Unified Modeling Language is a standardized general-purpose modeling language in the field of object-oriented software engineering. The standard is managed, and was created, by the Object Management Group...

 profile and metamodel for the modeling and design of services within a service-oriented architecture

Service-oriented architecture

In software engineering, a Service-Oriented Architecture is a set of principles and methodologies for designing and developing software in the form of interoperable services. These services are well-defined business functionalities that are built as software components that can be reused for...

.

The existing models and meta models (e.g. TOGAF

TOGAF

The Open Group Architecture Framework is a framework for enterprise architecture which provides a comprehensive approach for designing, planning, implementation, and governance of an enterprise information architecture...

) for describing system architectures turned out to be insufficient to describe SOA in a precise and standardized way. The UML itself seems to be too general for the purpose of describing SOA and needed clarification and standardization of even basic terms like provider, consumer, etc...

SoaML has been created to support the following modeling capabilities:

• Identifying services, dependencies between them and services requirements
• Specifying services (functional capabilities, consumer expectations, the protocols and message exchange patterns)
• Defining service consumers and providers
• The policies for using and providing services
• Services classification schemes
• Integration with OMG Business Motivation Model
  Business Motivation Model
  The Business Motivation Model in enterprise architecture provides a scheme and structure for developing, communicating, and managing business plans in an organized manner...
  
  
• Foundation for further extensions both related to integration with other OMG metamodels like BPDM and the upcoming BPMN 2.0, as well as SBVR, OSM, ODM and others.

Further reading

• SoaML Wiki. "SoaML Wiki". SoaML and OMG, 03 Nov 2009.
• SoaML OMG Specification http://www.omg.org/spec/SoaML/
• OASIS SOA Reference Model Technical Committee http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=soa-rm