Ali Arsanjani

There has been a lot of buzz and hype, some factual, some not so well-founded, surrounding the opportunities presented by Service-oriented Architectures (SOA) and their implementation as Web services. Analysts have predicted, pundits have professed, professors have lectured. And companies have scurried to sell what they had as SOA products, often missing the point that SOA is not a product. SOA is about bridging the gap between business and IT through a set of business-aligned IT services using a set of design principles, patterns, and techniques. This article discusses the highlights of service-oriented modeling and architecture, and the key activities needed for the analysis and design required to build a Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA). It stresses the importance of addressing the techniques required for the identification, specification and realization of s... (more)

Service-Oriented Architecture

In many respects, SOA is an evolution of the fundamental tenets governing component-based development (CBD). It also represents a quantum leap in bringing business and information technology into closer alignment through a set of SOA services grounded in business goals in support of business processes. While SOA services are visible to the service consumer, their underlying components are transparent. For the service provider, the design of components, their service exposure and management reflect key architecture and design decisions that enable services in SOA. Making these dec... (more)