The serving relationship models that an element provides its functionality to another element which describes how the services or interfaces offered by a behavior or active structure element serve entities in their environment. This relationship is applied for both the behavior aspect and the active structure aspect.
The example below illustrates the serving relationship. The Payment Interface serves the Customer, while the Payment Service serves the Pay Invoices process of that customer.
Compared to the earlier versions of this standard, the name of this relationship has been changed from ‘used by’ to ‘serving’, to better reflect its direction with an active verb: a service serves a user. The meaning of the relationship has not been altered. The ‘used by’ designation is still allowed but deprecated, and will be removed in a future version of the standard.
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