A service-oriented architecture (SOA)

Definition

• A service-oriented architecture (SOA) is an architectural pattern in computer software design in which application components provide services to other components via a communications protocol, typically over a network.

• The principles of service-orientation are independent of any vendor, product or technology.

Other definition

• A paradigm for organizing and utilizing distributed capabilities that may be under the control of different ownership domains.

• It provides a uniform means to offer, discover, interact with and use capabilities to produce desired effects consistent with measurable preconditions and expectations.

Service Oriented Architecture

Service Oriented Architecture

• Service-oriented architecture (SOA) is an approach to loosely coupled, protocol independent, standards-based distributed computing where software resources available on the network are considered as Services.

What is SOA ? A Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) is a way of designing a software system and its

surrounding environment to provide services either to end-user applications, to

executable business processes or to other services through published and discoverable

service interfaces.

Benefits:

Loose coupling among interacting software agents

A mechanism for integrating software components on dissimilar platforms

Supports non-intrusive reuse of software components in ways not specifically predicted at

development time

Can enable easier insourced/outsourced development by breaking systems down into smaller

chunks

Company BCompany A

Application A

ObjectA-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Application B

ObjectB------------------------------------------------

Service

Broker

Service Interface

PublishDiscover

The Service Oriented Architecture

New? No

Rocket science? Not really

A change in thinking? Most definitely!

Can you run right out and buy one? Well…..

The SOA Model

SOA Metamodel

SOA is a form of enterprise architecture and can be represented using models. SOA metamodel is a model that contains the following three models.

Differences: SOA vs. Existing Model Driven Architecture (MDA)

• SOA is an alternative model to the more traditionally tightly-coupled object-oriented models like Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA) and Distributed Component Object Model (DCOM)

• In SOA individual services can be build with object-oriented designs but the overall design of SOA is service-oriented