An infrastructure service is defined as an externally visible unit of functionality, provided by one or more nodes, exposed through well-defined interfaces, and meaningful to the environment.

An infrastructure service exposes the functionality of a node to its environment. This functionality is accessed through one or more infrastructure interfaces.

An infrastructure service may include messaging, storage, naming, and directory services.

It may access artifacts; e.g., a file containing a message. An infrastructure service may be used by application components or nodes.

An infrastructure service is realized by a node.

An infrastructure service is exposed by a node by assigning it to its infrastructure interfaces. An infrastructure service may consist of sub-services.

The name of an infrastructure service should preferably be a verb ending with "-ing"; e.g., "messaging".

Category:

Technology. Behavioural.

Examples:

Messaging Service, Customer File Service, Claim Files Service.

Typical Relationships:

Used by - application component, node
Assignment - infrastructure interface
Access - artifact
Realisation - node