PIECINGTOGETHER

SOASure, it sounds scary

and technical. But SERVICE-ORIENTED

ARCHITECTUREis the next big shift

in software development and it will affect your

mid-size business sooner than you think.

WRITTEN BY LAUREN GIBBONS PAUL

ILLUSTRATED BY MIRKO ILIC

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WITH EVERYTHING THAT’Srequired to keep your businessafloat, the last thing you wantto hear about is anothertechnical acronym—especiallyone that speaks to all kinds of complex issues and thejargon surrounding softwareprogramming. Better to get up to speed on such a newtechnology, conventionalwisdom has it, when you canbuy it packaged up neatly in a box at your local officesupplies store.

That’s a dangerous attitude to take when it comes to Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA).Major change is afoot in the world of softwaredevelopment, and SOA represents the next majorstep in the evolution. Small- to mid-sized businesses(SMBs) can’t afford to bury their heads until the dust around SOA settles. Certainly, SOA and itsimplications are pretty technical and abstract. EvenCIOs at Fortune 500 companies are struggling tounderstand the implications and choices. So ifyou’re intimidated, you’re not alone.

The move toward SOA is affecting both companiesthat develop their own applications for use in-house and companies that create software to sell commercially. In the simplest terms, SOAenables companies to create new functions (called“services”) to be used both inside and outside the

four walls of the enterprise much more quickly andeasily. Services are flexible and easily changed, ratherthan monolithic applications that are cast in stoneonce written.

Granted, since most SMBs do not do any softwareprogramming of their own, SOA is not immediatelyapplicable. But, that will change over time, ascompanies grow and begin to have a hodge-podge of their own software applications.

“When you’re small enough and you have onesoftware package that does everything for you,integration doesn’t matter and neither does SOA. Butthe moment you need to do some integration, that’swhere SOA starts to come into play,” says Dan Foody,

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CTO at Actional Corp., an SOA software vendor inMountain View, CA. “As your business grows, yoursystems will need to grow with you.[SMBs] need to be prepared to deal with SOA.” If you invest now in SOA-ready applications, you won’t face themonumental task of having to rip out everything and replace it a few years down the line.

Large companies have always created applicationsthat draw on data from different systems. To do that,they had to do a lot of behind-the-scenes knitting,or integration, to tie together the data to form anapplication. The resulting custom-programmedlinks among systems are sometimes called“spaghetti code,” hinting at their messiness.

To create a customer-service application, forexample, a large financial-services company mighthave to extract data from its accounting system,its customer database, and its marketingknowledgebase. Since the data comes from differenttypes of systems, much work has to be done (oftenthrough the use of software called “middleware”) totranslate the disparate data so it can be used by thecustomer-service application.

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CROSSING OVER: CIBER’s Hoerster is helping SMBs navigate SOA waters.

Data integration (sometimes called“enterprise application integration,” or EAI) is extremely expensive and time-consuming.By some estimates, large enterprises spendnearly half of their IT dollars on integration.

Another problem is that with traditional software,every time something changes in the businessprocess, each instance of affected code has to bechanged by hand.

What is different here—and potentially earth-shattering—is under an SOA, snippets of softwarecode make up services (for example, “authenticateuser,” “check credit,” or “create new e-mail account”)rather than monolithic applications. These servicescan be easily joined together and broken apart,reusing them again and again, with much less fussand muss. This approach to software developmentspeeds the creation of new functions and makes thewhole software landscape much more flexible.

Setting the Stage for SOAThe single most important concept in SOA is thenotion of reusable software services as opposed to a single application focused on one function.

“The whole idea is to have these logical units ofservice, whatever they are. They can be simple orthey can be a complete business process, but to havethem independent and not chained to each other,”says David Hoerster, solutions architect for CIBER

Inc., a systems integrator in Pittsburgh, helpingmany SMBs dip their toes in the SOA waters.

For instance, one of CIBER’s clients, a mid-sizedcompany in the financial-services industry, neededto interface with a much larger business partner.“They received data feeds from many different placesand they needed to integrate those into one system.They used to write a separate application for eachdata feed,” says Hoerster. But if either of the partiesever changed their business processes (settingdifferent credit policies, for example), all of the datainterfaces would have to be rewritten. “We changedthe way that customer thought of integrating withtrading partners. We moved away from individualapplications and used SOA to move to a centralizedway of dealing with all trading partners.”

One good way to get your head around SOA is tofocus on a potentially less-intimidating, but relatedconcept: Web services. Web services involve enablingthe exchange of data according to standard Internetprotocols. If you’re like most SMB professionals, youhave at least a nodding familiarity with the idea.

SOA goes only one step further, describing the

“We moved away from individual applicationsand used SOA to move to a centralizedway of dealing with all trading partners.”

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� Microsoft Corp. is a major SOAplayer. Its .NET software developmentframework is often used as a platformfor companies to build open, standards-based applications that can be easilyexchanged via Web services. Inaddition, Microsoft BizTalk Server isan integration platform that can serveas a backbone for an SOA.

� As one of the biggest suppliers of software and services to largeenterprises, IBM is now scramblingvia its SOA Partner Initiative to get itsnetwork of systems integrators andconsultants up to speed on SOA sothey can start bringing the word tocompanies with fewer than 1,000employees.

� SAP, the granddaddy of enterprisesoftware, has re-architected its wholeproduct line around SOA. It is unlikelythat SAP’s flagship NetWeaver willever be used by small businesses,but like IBM, SAP is working withpartners to bring the SOA vision andtechnology to mid-market customers.

WHO’S PLAYING THE SOA GAME? Led by the industry heavyweights, SOA is fast trickling down the software food chain. Here’s what the big guys are doing with SOA:

overall architecture, or schema, on which chunks ofsoftware are created for maximum reusability andcollaboration. “SMBs focus on the things that makethe business go round. The last thing on their mind isto put themselves on the leading edge of technologyadoption. But they do want to be competitive andmaximize the investments they have already made,”says Shaun Jones, director of SMB marketing for IBM’ssoftware group in Somers, NY. That’s why it’simportant to start thinking about SOA now.

When attempting to understand the servicesconcept, it’s helpful to see a few examples of thingsthat would not be services as defined under an SOA.Some functions are too narrowly defined to beuseable as services. For example, “get customeraddress/phone number.” Unto itself, that limitedfunction is not useful enough to be worth the effortto “expose” it as a service (i.e., make it accessible to others). “You’re just retrieving one piece of data.It’s not going to give you enough bang for the buck,” says Brent Carlson, co-founder and CTO of LogicLibrary Inc., a Pittsburgh-based SOA software vendor.

At the other extreme, there are business processesthat are too complex to become automated services.For example, a chief financial officer might love to have a software service that would close the

accounting books for the year. Butthere is too much human judgmentinvolved. “The process is too complexto automate fully,” says Carlson.Discrete elements of the accountingprocess such as “retrieve monthly sales numbers”would make useful software services to be used byinternal employees and perhaps even shared outsidethe organization.

Playing with the Big BoysGoing forward, SOA will be relevant for SMBs for two reasons. First (assuming they are runningthe business on more than one application), theycan use an SOA to create services and make themavailable to business partners and customers, whichlets them operate like and compete with muchlarger businesses. For example, a small wholesalermight create a service for online bill presentationthat would allow its customers to pay electronically,a feature that most large companies would offer.

Second, SMBs can create services that will allow them to gain efficiencies through greaterautomation. A small retailer could build a service forits supplier/vendors to manage their own inventory(just as Wal-Mart requires its suppliers to do).

SOA will also have major consequences for SMBson the software delivery side. The new architecturewill allow the large enterprise software vendors likeSAP, IBM, and Microsoft to deliver their monolithicsoftware applications in more easily digestiblechunks, making this functionality more affordableand putting it more easily within reach for smallercompanies. Also, as more and more firms of all sizesestablish SOAs, collaboration and data sharing willbecome easier and easier, enabling small firms toteam up to serve large customers.

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MAKE YOUR OWN TANGRAM!

“SMBs focus on the things that make the business go round.The last thing ontheir mind is to put themselves on theleading edge of technology adoption.”

�

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Of course, this isn’t going to happen overnight.Clearly, SOAs are still not in widespread use.Currently, only the largest, savviest users of IThave established this type of software developmentarchitecture and are creating and deploying re-useable services.

But what can you do now to start preparing forSOA? Start by keeping SOA in mind the next timeyou consider an important software purchase,quizzing the vendor to make sure they support Web services/SOA. This may not always be readilyapparent. “There are two classes of software outthere. One is software that is built around Webservices. The other is where Web services are just asideline and one way to connect into the system,”says Foody. You may have to probe a bit or talk tosome customers.

The bottom line: As the software architecture ofthe future, SOA can help you adapt more rapidly tobusiness change. “[SMBs] should be thinking aboutthe services they can publish to improve theirbusiness processes and be more cost effective,” says Marty Shuchman, vice president of softwareand services for Apptix Inc., a provider of hostedapplications to SMBs in Herndon, VA. QuestionsShuchman suggests SMBs consider include how dothey communicate today with their partners andwhat can they do with them to be a little morefriendly for collaboration? It also helps to thinkabout what external systems can be integrated intotheir company.

“Small companies are very nimble. They are goingto get bigger and their audience will be larger. Howthey interact with partners and customers will be so,so important,” says Samir Gulati, vice president ofmarketing for Apptix. “It’s all about improving theway you do business at the highest level. If you canexpose your services, you can talk more seamlesslywith your partners and customers.”

Lauren Gibbons Paul has more than 15 years ofexperience as a writer for such publications as eWEEK,CIO, Managing Automation, and Network World.

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SOA PUZZLE SOA will eventually usher in bigchanges in software. Here’swhat you need to know.ILLUSTRATIONS BY JIM KOPP

SOA SPEAK SOA ushers in its ownalphabet soup. Here are some basic translations:

Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA):An architecture built around a collection ofreusable components with well-defined interfaces.Though often based on Web services, SOA is anabstract framework and runs independent of anyspecific technologies.Enterprise Service Bus (ESB): A softwareinfrastructure that uses a standard interface andmessaging to integrate applications; one way toimplement an SOA.Loosely Coupled: The use of well-definedinterfaces to connect services. SOAs are built usinga loosely coupled approach, where a change in oneservice does not require changes in linked services.Middleware: Middleware provides amechanism for connecting various applications,even across platforms. Data resides in messagequeues where receiving programs can retrieve itwithout creating a direct connection with thesending applications.

THE YEAR OF SOA ForresterResearch Inc. recently surveyed 116 North Americancorporate decision-makers on their SOA adoptionplans. Here are some highlights:

SOURCE: Forrester Research Inc.

Who is using SOA today or planning to implement it this year?

What do they use SOA for?

Large enterprises

28%22%

37%15%

Medium-sized enterprises

SMBs

Internal integration

External integration

Multi-channel applications 9%Strategic business transformation 9%

The 1990s The 2000s

EVOLVING TO SOA The new era of Web services has been years in the making. The next-generation is a leapforward in bringing flexibility and platform-independence to software development.

CLIENT/SERVER COMPUTING The proliferation of desktop PCs spurred aredesign of software so that much of theprocessing could run on the desktop, boostinginteractivity and performance. Software creatorswould still have to imagine every possible functionthe software might perform and program each oneinto the application.

OBJECT-ORIENTED PROGRAMMING Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) appeared on the scene, an advance in that softwarecomponents or “objects” could be reused from oneapplication to the next. But OOP was limited by alack of openness. If you programmed objects inJava, for example, they would not work in aMicrosoft .NET environment.

SERVICE-ORIENTED ARCHITECTURE SOA is a leap forward since chunks of code similar to objects are “platform independent,”meaning they can be used within any computingenvironment. Internet standards such as SOAP andXML laid the groundwork for SOA/Web services.

SOA AT WORK Some real-worldexamples of how SOA will be used:

1A small manufacturer of custom tables needs to communicate with itssuppliers and customers. This companycould leverage information from itsmanufacturing system to create services

such as “look up order” or “check ship date” to give its partners and customers access to thisinformation. Once created, these services would be reusable.

2A mid-size healthcare provider needs to interact with governmental agencies,medical supply vendors, and patients.The provider could create services suchas “create medical record” and “bill

Medicare” for both internal and external use.

3A mid-size retailer has to check the creditworthiness of its customers beforeallowing them to sign up for an in-housecredit card. Rather than creating a stand-alone software application to

perform a credit check on each applicant, theretailer could break up that function into severalindividual services (such as “verify address,”“confirm existing credit card,” and “check bankbalance”) under an SOA.

FOR MORE INFORMATION Want to know more about SOA? Try tapping these resources:

WEBSERVICES.XML.COMWhat is Service-Oriented Architecture? http://webservices.xml.com/pub/a/ws/2003/09/30/soa.html

CBDI FORUMSOA Fundamentals www.cbdiforum.com/secure/inter-act/2005-07/soa_fundamentals.php

WEBSERVICES.ORGContains a collection of SOA-related articles and explainers.(Requires free membership.) www.webservices.org

Nay: “SOA isnot on the

priority list formost smallbusinesses

Most do not develop

their ownsoftware

they buy it off-the-shelf

.

,

.”

Yea: “An SMBshould careabout SOAbecause of whatit can enablethem to do and how it canaffect theirbusiness. Wherecan they offer applications thatmake them actmore like a largebusiness?”

—Merle SandlerSenior Research Analyst,International Data Corp.

—David CrisafiDirector of Technical Empowerment,Progress Software Corp. PO

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