Promoting Web Services industry standards is a first step. Developing a set of standards-based Community Service Interface Specifications that describe how systems share functionality and data with each other and the Net-Centric GIG is the primary endeavor of the CoI. Accomplishing this involves establishing a multi-level CoI structure that develops and evolves the service interface specification enabled by a more centralized team that manages the CoI and the interoperability architecture artifacts. The centralized team is divided into the management team and the design team.
The CoI management team is responsible for determining the multi-level CoI organization and managing the productivity of CoI efforts. The multi-level CoI involves organizations and members that participate at varying levels including a core team, an extended team, and the general participation. The CoI management team must carefully determine the make-up of the CoI to ensure productivity and rapid returns. The core team must be chosen strategically. It should only consist of those organizations that are required to gain critical mass and no more. In industry service interface specifications are often established by a single organization like Amazon and E-bay who are large enough in themselves to drive a service interface specification into wide spread adoption. Although the DoD and other communities may not enjoy this luxury, by strategically connecting a few “eight hundred pound gorillas” a community can build a Community Service Interface Specification that can quickly deliver value not only to the gorillas but also to other organizations who are willing to adopt the specification. If the CoI leadership chooses the core team correctly then the demand for the services provided by the gorillas will drive specification adoption. The community, through the extended team and the general participants, can evolve the specification to meet the “20%” of specific needs. Assembling a core team that is too large can stall progress and lead to a specification that is too “specific” to have general applicability. Conversely, choosing a core team that is too small will inhibit adoption of the specification. The general rule is to assemble the “market makers” or those organizations that offer the most value to the “net” by exposing their capabilities as Net-Centric services.
The design teams leads the technical work and captures the CoI efforts into systems and service design artifacts. It subsequently collects input and manages configuration control on the design artifacts. These artifacts include the Community Service Interface Specifications themselves as well as the critical design documents (use cases, sequence diagrams, etc.) upon which they are based. The technical team can also manage interoperability compliance and exception handling of developed services through conformance with the Community Service Interface Specification.
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