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A New Application Design Paradigm
In conjunction with the maturity and acceptance of application servers as the preferred platform for enterprise applications, and with the general agreement on industry standards such as XML and SOAP, there is growing consensus on a new best practice for application architecture: Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA). This best practice refers to applications that are built from services – either platform services (such as J2EE EJBs or .NET components) or SOAP-enabled web services, and the services are woven together using Business Process Management (BPM) capabilities.
SOA defines the following design principles to be applied in developing applications:
- Modularity – splitting functionality into smaller, reusable building blocks.
- Encapsulation – enclosing the modular functionality inside components with well-defined interfaces for “clients” to interact with.
- Loose coupling – each service makes no assumptions that clients of the service will include any specific functionality to allow the service to function properly.
Leading industry analysts have clearly identified the importance of SOA and the likely dominance of SOA as the common application architecture in years to come:
“Giga recommends architects consider service-orientation as the top priority for their architecture planning efforts.” Giga Group
“Advances in software technology and potent business drivers are making service-oriented architecture a must.” GartnerGroup
Making Life Easier for IT Organizations
The reason that analysts and customers are rallying behind Service-Oriented Architecture is that there are a number of distinct benefits related directly to two key issues: flexibility and agility. Previous-generation architectures have made it difficult for IT organizations to integrate functionality and systems, and made it difficult for them to respond quickly to changing business needs or competitive demands. In a world where no single vendor delivers all the competitive functionality required, and in a world where businesses merge and competitive landscapes change, it is highly desirable to have applications that are not rigid and restrictive.
SOA offers the following specific benefits:
- Simpler configuration of composite applications using Business Process Management tools
- Easier integration of functionality into multi-channel solutions
- Faster integration of multiple pieces of in-house and third-party functionality
- Safer upgrades using platform service upgrade and versioning support
- Better support for large or geographically distributed development teams by dividing development using services
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