Datasheet

ManualsBrandsFor Dummies ManualsSoftware978-0-470-37684-3

Chapter 1

Getting to Know SOA

In This Chapter

▶ Finding out why you should care about SOA

▶ Liberating business from the constraints (and tyranny) of technology

▶ Illustrating the need for SOA

▶ Saving bundles by using what you have

▶ Expanding your SOA to customers, partners, and suppliers

▶ Focusing on function

ervice oriented architecture (SOA) is a hot topic being bandied about by

IT vendors across the globe. IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Software AG, Oracle,

SAP, and Microsoft (just to drop a few names) are all singing from the SOA

songbook, and hundreds of vendors are adding their tunes as we speak.

“What’s SOA?” you ask. We suspect that you’ve already skimmed a dozen

articles and read (or deleted) hundreds of e-mails from vendors pushing SOA,

but the answers you’ve gotten so far have been, well, vague and inadequate.

The short answer is that SOA is a business approach to building IT systems

that allows businesses to

✓ Leverage existing assets

✓ Create new ones

✓ Easily enable the inevitable changes required to support the business

For you impatient readers out there, we expand on this short answer in

Chapter 5. However, right now, we think the more important question is, “Why

should I care about SOA?” In this chapter, we try to answer this question.

05_376843-ch01.indd 705_376843-ch01.indd 7 12/2/08 11:50:31 PM12/2/08 11:50:31 PM

COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL

Summary of content (10 pages)

PAGE 1
Chapter 1 AL Getting to Know SOA ▶ Finding out why you should care about SOA RI In This Chapter ▶ Liberating business from the constraints (and tyranny) of technology TE ▶ Illustrating the need for SOA ▶ Saving bundles by using what you have MA ▶ Expanding your SOA to customers, partners, and suppliers D ▶ Focusing on function S GH TE ervice oriented architecture (SOA) is a hot topic being bandied about by IT vendors across the globe.
PAGE 2
8 Par t I: Get ting Started with SOA The promise of service oriented architecture is to liberate business from the constraints of technology, unshackling technologists and business leaders from the chains they themselves have forged. (“IT workers of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains!” as it were.) This has major implications both for the business and for the IT structure that supports the business.
PAGE 3
Chapter 1: Get ting to Know SOA reality by using SOA. Together, IT and business leaders can determine a strategy that both liberates business from IT and allows IT to create maintainable, extensible, compliant systems to support the initiatives determined by business leaders. Tech Lib Just because business has become constrained by technology, don’t think that the folks in IT are having a jolly old time basking in their new-found power.
PAGE 4
10 Par t I: Get ting Started with SOA suppliers to help it continue to compete. It bought or built business applications to solve problems all over the company — one at a time. For example, it bought an application for the corporate finance department, created one to handle customer claims, and procured other applications to manage research information about what type of accidents were most common under what circumstances.
PAGE 5
Chapter 1: Get ting to Know SOA Management and IT were very sad. They knew that ABC wouldn’t survive if they couldn’t find a new way of thinking about business process and technology. So they began asking everyone they knew of any way to save ABC. They searched, and they studied, and they prayed — until one day, a package arrived. In that package were several copies of a yellow-and-black book titled, Service Oriented Architecture For Dummies, 2nd Edition.
PAGE 6
12 Par t I: Get ting Started with SOA One problem common of many large companies that have been around for a while is that they have lots of similar programs — software applications — representing commonly used business processes. Every time a department wants something slightly different, that department builds its own version of the software so that across a particular company, you might find umpteen versions of more or less the same processes — with, of course, slight variations.
PAGE 7
Chapter 1: Get ting to Know SOA With SOA, business managers work with IT to identify business services. Together, they determine policy and best practices. These policies and best practices become codified business services that represent honed company business processes. No need, for example, to have 30 different variations on an exchange rate translation application, each used by a different department and all requiring IT time for ongoing maintenance. One business service will do.
PAGE 8
14 Par t I: Get ting Started with SOA Here’s a real-world application. Electrical appliances that you plug in at home today plug in equally well at the office or if you move across town. If you travel abroad, though, you likely need electrical adapters. When standard interfaces don’t agree, you must adapt. Likewise, working with industry standards set forth by standards bodies enable autonomous entities (partners, customers, and suppliers) to dance at the ball.
PAGE 9
Chapter 1: Get ting to Know SOA and structuring it to allow you not only to continue to use it, but to use it securely knowing that future change will be simple, straightforward, safe, and fast. SOA is indeed a journey; it can’t be built overnight. But organizations can begin SOA now and can benefit now. Ultimately, SOA renders a business more flexible — and IT more reliable, sustainable, extensible, manageable, and accountable. We think SOA is the most important mandate facing business and IT today.
PAGE 10
16 Par t I: Get ting Started with SOA