Preface

A lot of organizations are implementing, or want to implement, Service Oriented Architecture to support their goals. Service Oriented Architecture is a natural step in the evolution of Information Technology; we started out with big systems in universities and banks, and moved to desktop computers in the workplace and at home. We are now moving to solutions in the cloud, offering services to consumers and businesses alike, adding mobile computing to the mix. So what is a service? A service is something that has value. Service orientation is not a difficult concept to grasp, everyone knows services and uses them daily; think of a hotel that offers a shuttle service to the nearest airport. Or the hairdresser that cuts your hair. This book describes how you can accomplish service orientation successfully in your organization and in IT, using a practical and simple approach. It is done without overly complex abstractions, but with examples from different industries and hands-on experience of the authors. The approach is independent of the specific technology or programming language you apply in your organization.

What this book covers

Chapter 1, Understanding the problem?, discusses the challenges that organizations face with respect to information technology and is illustrated with examples. Architecture is explained as a means to solve these problems structurally and in compliance with your organization's goals.

Chapter 2, The Solution, explains how applying SOA can help your organization to solve the problems that were discussed in the previous chapter. In this chapter, the concept of services is explained as well as Service Oriented Architecture.

Chapter 3, Service Identification and Design, describes how services are the base of a Service Oriented Architecture. The process of identifying services and designing their interface, contract, and implementation are important activities when realizing a Service Oriented Architecture.

Chapter 4, Classification of Services, covers the different types of services. You learn in this chapter how classification can help you in your SOA effort. The chapter explains different ways of classifying your services and the reason to choose a particular classification. Classification based on service composition is discussed in detail.

Chapter 5, The SOA Platform, identifies the different components of an SOA platform and explains the use of these components, keeping in mind that to realize an SOA in your organization, you need a platform to build it with

Chapter 6, Solution Architectures, tells us about how you can go for a best-of-breed solution to realize your SOA, or use a product suite. The solution of the big software vendors Oracle, IBM, and Microsoft are discussed in terms of the components you need for an SOA platform.

Chapter 7, Creating a Roadmap, How to Spend Your Money and When?, explains how to plan your endeavor. In this chapter, creating a roadmap for the realization of your SOA is discussed.

Chapter 8, Life Cycle Management, explains how to maintain services. Requirements may change, services may become outdated, and new services may be needed. This chapter discusses life cycle management of services, and tooling that supports registries and repositories.

Chapter 9, Pick your Battles, talks about how during the realization and operation of an SOA you will run into issues with stakeholders. A common pitfall for architects is to be too strict and unrealistic about what can be achieved. This chapter discusses some common issues you will run into and discusses how to handle them.

Chapter 10, Methodologies and SOA, talks about how there are existing methodologies in IT that you are probably using right now in your organization for project management, demand management, and so on. This chapter discusses the impact of using SOA on these existing methodologies.

What you need for this book

To create the code samples given in this book, you need tooling that can display XML. You can view the samples with any XML viewer, text editor, or integrated development environment (IDE) or browser.

Who this book is for

This book is for anyone (architect, designer, developer, administrator, team lead) who is implementing or is about to implement an SOA in an IT-related environment. This guide tells you everything you need to know about an SOA in a clear and easy way. Knowledge or experience with software architecture and information architecture is helpful but not a strict requirement.

Conventions

In this book, you will find a number of styles of text that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles, and an explanation of their meaning.

Code words in text are shown as follows: " Both offer showMenuItems as an interface to BreakfastService."

A block of code is set as follows:

<xsd:element name="OrderProductRequest">
  <xsd:complexType>
    <xsd:sequence>
      <xsd:element name="ProductId" type="xsd:string"/>
      <xsd:element name="Quantity" type="xsd:nonNegativeInteger"/>
      <xsd:element name="CustomerId" type="xsd:string"/>
    </xsd:sequence>
  </xsd:complexType>
</xsd:element>

When we wish to draw your attention to a particular part of a code block, the relevant lines or items are set in bold:

<wsdl:documentation>
  The Order will create an order for multiple orders
  Version history
          V1.0.0 Initial service description
</wsdl:documentation>

New terms and important words are shown in bold.

Note

Warnings or important notes appear in a box like this.

Tip

Tips and tricks appear like this.

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