Global Reference Architecture—Service Specification Package (SSP) Model Release 1.0

Introduction

Welcome to the Global Reference Architecture (GRA) Service Specification Package (SSP), namespace, and metadata model release 1.0. The GRA Guidelines for Identifying and Designing Services (GRA GIDS) defines the methodology for determining and designing services. The GRA Service Specification Guideline (GRA SSG) provides information on how to create Service Specifications and a method for describing and documenting the scope, as well as the functional and technical requirements, of a service. The specification provides sufficient detail to enable service providers to develop interoperable service implementations. Additionally, the service specification provides service consumers with enough detail to review, select, and use these services based on their business needs. While a Service Specification provides enough information to fulfill the requirements, the Service Specification is not intended to provide a comprehensive view of the service technical design or implementation.

GRA SSP Components

The GRA Service Specification Package (GRA SSP) is further defined in the GRA SSG and is used to provide a consistent model for documenting GRA services. This document provides details regarding the components of a Service Specification, which are compiled in a GRA Service Specification Package (SSP). It also provides the conformance targets for Service Specifications and practical instructions on how to create SSPs. This model will be used for documenting all services submitted and approved by the Global Standards Council (GSC). These services, along with other Global standards and interoperability documentation, comprise the Global Standard Package (GSP), which is a subset of all Global artifacts contained in the Global Information Sharing Toolkit (GIST). The GSC is a standards working group within the Global Justice Information Sharing Initiative (Global) and is responsible for overseeing the GSP.
 

The SSP is portable, self-contained, and self-documented. The SSP is human- and machine-readable and can be used independently or become part of a service registry and/or repository. The Service Descriptions are represented in the SSP as documents along with other related artifacts referenced in the document. The Service Interface Descriptions manifest themselves as Service Interface Description Documents and the related artifacts for each service interface, which are referenced in the respective document for this interface. Among the templates provided as part of the SSP, there are templates for the Service Description Document and the Service Interface Description Document—both of which can be discovered by downloading the GRA SSP .zip file that contains these and other useful SSP templates. In addition, when an identified business process requires multiple information exchanges/services, Global encourages the use of the Business Process Description Document (BPDD) which is expected to be available in August 2014.

The Namespace

The namespace for this version of the service specification and all related artifacts is https://bja.ojp.gov/program/it/gsp/services (this page). Developers, architects, and service authors are strongly encouraged to use this namespace when developing Global service specifications. This namespace provides a collection of names, identified by uniform resource identifiers (URIs), which are used to support GRA service specifications, service specification artifacts, packaging metadata, and sample documents. This namespace ensures that these documents are able to use consistent and unique elements that support the overall GRA efforts.
 

These schemas represent code tables built to support the Global Reference Architecture, which are taken from specifications and publications created by other groups and organizations. The National Information Exchange Model (NIEM) Naming and Design Rules (NDR) was used to create the elements and attributes defined in this namespace. By using NIEM in this namespace, the GSC is able to maintain independence among the various specifications.
 

The service specification metadata is key to service discoverability and, consequently, reuse. It contains information about the service capabilities and defined interfaces and how they can be leveraged and invoked. The metadata information is specified in the following files:

Documentation

Microsoft Excel spreadsheet of types and properties: Metadata.xls

Service Specification Package (SSP) XML Schemas

SSP metadata model: Metadata.xsd

A sample XML file using SSP Metadata model: Metadata.xml