Business Actor realizes Business Role

It is quite natural to say in conversation that an Actor is assigned to a Role, but, in the spirit of the way we model architecture, it is in fact a realization relationship.

The Actor is making the Role 'real'. In a classic example, let's take a Role called 'Receptionist' in a hotel setting. This Role identifies a 'logical performer', part of the 'logical' architecture description, that implies certain expected logical behaviours, knowledge, skills, tools etc.

The person checking you into that hotel is realizing that Role, makng it 'real'. Their job title, and hence the Actor, could be Hotel Manager, Head Receptionist, Receptionist or Night Porter, and so on. This is a portrayal of the 'physical' architecture, the solution space.

If you carried on to say that the people involved are Bill, Sue, Charlie etc. they could also be said to be Actors, but in the sense of the 'deployment' architecture description.

This reasoning implies that a Business Actor should be able to realize itself in the metamodel, i.e. for the same reasons that were applied to the Application Component.