Service Oriented Architectures - Essay Example

Service Oriented Architectures are becoming increasingly popular. What is Service Oriented Architecture and what advantages and disadvantages doesit have compared to other architectures? Contents Introduction 3 Service Oriented Architecture 4 Case Study Example: Hewllet Packard 8 Hewllet Packard 8 HP’s SOA Manager 8 Advantages of Service Oriented Architecture 9 Collaboration Capability 10 Adaptation 10 Efficiency 10 Smoother operations 11 Innovation 11 Conclusions 11 References 12 Introduction The workplace has evolved over the last few decades. The changes have been in all fields and sectors of workplace and technology. The evolution of technology has not only motivated changes in everyday lives but in many respects the methodology of technological development. The concepts of outsourcing are a very good example to better introduce this topic. The increased competition among international manufacturers forces them to reduce their manufacturing costs. These industries are usually stemmed from advanced and high incomes countries of the world. The wage rates in these countries are really high because of high living standards. The labor cost is one of the major costs of manufacturing. Although in a simple operations analysis it would not seem very high. The major cost seems to be of raw materials and parts being used in the manufacturing process. One must understand that these parts are also being manufactured and thus their costs rise as well because of high wage rates. The manufacturing industries have no other reliable method of reducing their manufacturing cost other than outsourcing to countries with lower wage rates. Thus specialized outsourcing industries operate in the world of today, whose main aim is to help established manufacturers. These outsourcers have many different clients therefore in order to reduce their setup cost they standardize their process and parts. Thus we can see that different models of same products are made up of the same basic parts. Similarly in systems development new procedures and methodologies have emerged. Size and nature of organizational requirement usually differ from each other tremendously. The basic needs which stem from growth, diversity and information technology are however almost the same. Therefore organizations keep experimenting with better ways of managing their information systems. Service oriented architecture is a similar method of improving systems development. Service Oriented Architecture Service oriented architecture can be a tricky phenomenon to understand and comprehend if the right methodology of learning is not chosen. In a very simple definition, Service oriented architecture should be described as a design principle or a combination of different design principles. These principles are using during the different phases of system development in enterprises. The beauty of Service oriented architecture lies in its interoperability. Thus these can be used in many different totally unrelated systems and for various business types. This is a huge plus point for a service or a business. To better understand this concept one can take the example of a mechanical tool such as a screw driver which can be used on every type of screw. This tool would be much more useful than any other screw driver which can be used only for a specific type of screw. Therefore the use of Service oriented architecture can be related to a tool which has more than one function and can be used in many different situations and scenarios. The connection of customers to services is a major point of concern for many organizations. This is because a user interface is required which can connect consumers with available web based services. Service oriented architecture provides this capability to organizations by connecting consumers of applications to available solutions and services. XML can be used by the consumers to connect with services based on Service oriented architecture. SOA also has the capability of using multiple implementation platforms. This integrates different applications in the web-environment. Moreover the simplification of different functions in terms of services helps systems developers. They can use this simplification to provide access to different dispersed developers and help them produce new applications. Thus we can say that the main aim of Service oriented architecture is to standardize services and applications. This standardization as explained with the example of outsourcing is the key to reusing applications in different scenarios which seem unrelated. This benefits in not only increasing the creativity of developers but also increases the possibility of creating effective solutions. Moreover the biggest advantage is the reduction in errors and problems. This is because once the standard applications are being used by the developers it becomes easy to make sure there are fewer errors. Moreover using building block rather than making stuff from scratch makes it much easier to find quick and timely solutions. Thus it can be said that Service oriented architecture is a big step towards reducing very large costs it usually take to manage and maintain systems by making the process of system development more efficient. This efficiency is not only terms of time but also in terms of cost. Service oriented architecture is usually confused with other solutions bought rather than developed. This assumption however is totally misguided. One must understand that Service oriented architecture is not a way of providing readymade solutions. Rather Service oriented architecture is a methodology which makes the process of making custom solutions more efficiency by giving them basic building blocks. Thus it only organizes ‘IT infrastructures and business functionality’ (Mansukhani, 2005). The following are some core attributes of Service oriented architecture, which enable it to manage services in the computing environment: The main component of Service oriented architecture is increasing functionality by breaking the different parts of the development process in from of reusable services and components. The quality of these services formed because of functionality increasing efforts is another part of Service oriented architecture effectiveness. If these services are not useful to the developer the entire process is rendered useless. The effectiveness not only includes relevance but also useable interfaces. The availability of these services tools to the customers. The services should be open and should not target a specific person or groups. There has been much research on Service oriented architecture since it became a widely followed phenomenon. However one of the first researches conducted on Service oriented architecture were by Thomas Erl. Thomas Erl is a famous researcher who worked for SOA systems Inc. According to Thomas to understand Service oriented architecture once can break it down into 8 different service principles. The following are the eight principles given by Thomas: 1. Standardized Service Contract: The services given by Service oriented architecture are bound by an agreement on communications. This is usually a part of the service description document. 2. Service Loose Coupling: This principle ensures that there is minimum codependency among services. Therefore the services are diverse to be used in many functions at the same time. 3. Service Abstraction: The services are abstract and there is no logic for outside world. 4. Service Reusability: The services promote reuse by the consumers. This ensures that development cost for new services is at a minimum as the same service can be used multiple times for different things. 5. Service Autonomy: Services are autonomous because they control their individual logic. 6. Service Statelessness: The services aim at reducing the cost of system development. 7. Service Discoverability: The services need to be available to consumers. Therefore they are having enough Meta data to be searchable and detectable. 8. Service Composability: The services exist as a single sound which can be joined together to compose different music instrumentals. There have been different additions to the eight principles give by Thomas. However there is unanimous agreement that the following three principles should also be part of the original eight: 1. Service Optimization: The quality of service is the main aim and agenda. Therefore it can be agreed upon that services which are of higher quality in terms of usability etc are better than low quality services. 2. Service Relevance: The service is better if it is more relevant to the needs of the consumer. Therefore it can be said that different consumers would have a different point of view of about service relevance. This is because they would have their needs and thus would have a different point of view on relevance. 3. Service Encapsulation: As SOA aim to improve its capability by adding services being used by consumers, therefore sometimes services become part of the SOA which are not planned initially. In the modern age of competition it is impossible to imagine an effective and efficient development place without Service oriented architecture. The principles being used by Service oriented architecture are borrowed from the business environment and try to bring the required flexibility and efficiency that is essence of the business environment to system development. Thus it can be said that Service oriented architecture helps a business respond much more rapidly to changing needs of the market. The business not only becomes more efficient but more much more competitive. This agility can be a source of competitive advantage for business. Case Study Example: Hewllet Packard The best method of understanding any phenomenon is to use a case study example. There the example of Service Oriented Architecture usage by HP is being used here as a case study example. Hewllet Packard Hewllet Packard is one of the largest companies of the world. The company is one of the worlds biggest both by revenues and operating income. Hewllet Packard is usually called HP. An American corporation Hewllet Packard is world renowned for their innovative management techniques and out of box thinking. Being a technology sector giant it has always been the leader in implementing newer technologies and adopting contemporary ideas. The headquarters of Hewllet Packard are currently in California, in a city called Palo Alto. Although the story of HP is not as famous as those of Microsoft or Facebook, but it’s a fact that very similar to Microsoft’s Bill Gates, Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard also start HP from their garage. The specialty of Hewllet Packard is in designing hardware solutions and providing services related to their hardware solutions. The company started off with dominating the printers markets. Even today the printer division of HP is the leaders in its respective market. HP’s SOA Manager HP’s has always believed in improving the efficiency of the work environment. The pace of IT services has been a bottleneck for process flow in many organizations in the fast. This has prompted HP to try out new solutions for the newer Adaptive enterprise (Mansukhani, 2005). This is a vision for an enterprise where pace of services is the same as other various business related services. HP’s SOA Manager is the solution given by HP to overcome these problems. SOA Manager is designed to service contemporary challenges of web based services. It also provides a ‘virtualized model of business services’. The Manager has many different functions which can benefit a variable number of functions. The SOA manager can be very useful in managing lifecycles, policy enforcement and Enterprise management. The following are the key advantages of SOA Manager (Mansukhani, 2005) for organizations: Automated management of demand fluctuations in organizations. This can be useful for both The different services can be better identified because of meta data attached The SOA manager makes most systems automatic. This ensures that system developers and consumers do not have to carry out trivial tasks again and again The resources being utilized by the project or enterprise can also be better managed through SOA manager Advantages of Service Oriented Architecture Service Oriented Architecture brings many different advantages to the organizations and project which deploy it. Some of these advantages have already been discussed under technical aspects of Service Oriented Architecture. However advantages of Service Oriented Architecture cannot be restricted technical facilitations to system developers and consumers. Service Oriented Architecture brings much more to the organizations. Some of the following are long and short term advantages of Service Oriented Architecture: Collaboration Capability Hindrances to most collaboration in the business environment are due to sensitivity of data. There are usually security issues involved which stop any collaborations activities to occur between two parties. This is because in horizontal collaborations the collaborators are usually direct competitors as well. Therefore it is very important that the company secrets are not revealed to the other party. Even in vertical collaboration information security is the first concern for most organizations. This is one of the main capabilities of Service Oriented Architecture that it provides a very safe environment to share information. This not only increase the possibility of collaborations but also facilities in the process of collaboration. Adaptation The business environment is constantly changing. If organizations are to survive in this dynamic environment they have no choice but to change with the environment. The rigidity of legacy system design procedures stops organizations from changing or even thinking about change. Service Oriented Architecture not only facilitates the process of change but in fact prompts organizations to change. Efficiency As mentioned before increasing competition forces organizations to not only increase revenues but aggressively cut costs. This is because in order to compete prices have to be competitive and thus costs have to go down. Service Oriented Architecture helps business use standard services therefore not only enabling reuse of services but in fact encouraging it. This saves cost for the business. Smoother operations The business operations are much more smother in organizations using Service Oriented Architecture. This is because the enables the enterprise to use a common architecture and connect different systems prevalent throughout the organization. Innovation The Service Oriented Architecture is a big facilitator to innovation and creativity. To better understand we can take the example of building blocks. If we consider that different services are the building blocks. Therefore Service Oriented Architecture makes the process of creativity and innovations much simpler by making the inputs much simpler. Moreover as the user and service interfaces remain the same it becomes much easier to use newer products and services both for consumers and developers. Conclusions As can be seen from the discussion above that Service Oriented Architecture is a must for any organizations which aims to remain competitive in the modern day environment. The Service Oriented Architecture has many different advantages which have been discussed in detail above. There should therefore be more emphasis on growing awareness about Service Oriented Architecture in organizations. The possibilities to improving system development are limitless once we use Service Oriented Architecture. There are also many possibilities of improvement and expansion in Service Oriented Architecture. This is because it’s a dynamic tool which can be updated and improved in parts without disturbing the total body of the system. References Bell, M., (2008). Introduction to Service-Oriented Modeling. Service-Oriented Modeling: Service Analysis, Design, and Architecture Bell, M., (2010). SOA Modeling Patterns for Service-Oriented Discovery and Analysis. Wiley & Sons. Channabasavaiah, H., (2003). Migrating to a service-oriented architecture, Bieberstein, E. (2005). Service-Oriented Architecture Compass: Business Value, Planning, and Enterprise Roadmap, IBM Press books Mansukhani, M. (2005). Service Oriented Architecture White Paper Read More