How SOA is evolving in the real world

1
How SOA is evolving in the real world?

• Krishna Prasad and Prasad A. Chodavarapu
• GMs (Technology),
• HCL EAI Services (Formerly Aalayance )

2
Goal Understand how SOA is evolving

• Todays Alphabet Soup
• SOA, xSOA, ESA, ESB, EDA, EPCIS, BAM, BPEL
• Use xSOA 3-layer model to understand why and how
  each of these technologies is evolving the way it
  is
• Q A

3
Scope of this talk

• This talk will not cover basics of Web Services.
  E.g., SOAP, WSDL and UDDI are not described.
• We briefly revisit SOA as the base layer in xSOA
• We provide examples from our experience in Supply
  chain management (Business Integration) and
  Security domains

4
Extended Service Oriented Architecture (xSOA)
5
What is xSOA?

• xSOA 3-layer model is to SOA what OSI 7-layer
  model is to networking
• An attempt at abstracting the way SOA needs to
  evolve

6
xSOA 3 Layer stack
Source Michael P. Papazoglou
7
xSOA Layer 1 Service Oriented Architecture (SOA)
8
What is a Service?

• Basic unit of SOA
• Logic offered in a context-independent way
• Context-independence allows composition of
  services into higher level services
• A Service should be
• Self-describing E.g., By way of Web Service
  Definition Language (WSDL)
• Discoverable E.g., By way of Universal Discovery
  and Description interface (UDDI).
• Technology-agnostic Accessible from every
  platform, e.g., via SOAP

9
What is SOA?

• SOA re-organizes software applications and
  infrastructure with services as fundamental
  elements
• Examples of SOA evolution in real world
• EPCIS (RFID)
• ESA (SAP)

10

• Example in Layer-1
• EPCIS (RFID)

11
What is EPCIS?

• Electronic Product Code (EPC)
• Next generation barcode
• Identifies each object, not just products
• Includes company code, product id and serial
  number
• Radio Frequency Identifier (RFID)
• Standard for RF based tags storing EPC.
• EPC can be read from the tag using a RFID Reader.
  
• RFID tags may include sensors E.g., Temperature
  sensor
• EPC Information System (EPCIS)
• Distributed services to track object lifecycle
  information.
• Emerging around Web Services for object tracking
  in the supply-chain space.
• Evolving at EPCGlobalInc.org

12
EPCIS Use Case
Source Marc Linster
13
EPCIS/RFID Solution Architecture
Source Connecterra
14
Why EPCIS is an example of xSOA Layer 1?

• EPCIS services are discoverable via ONS and
  Discovery services
• EPCIS uses WSDL to be self describing
• Each EPCIS system can be in any platform and they
  all can collaborate with each other.
  Interoperability is the key for EPCIS to work.

15

• Another Example in
• Layer-1 ESA (SAP)

16
What is ESA?

• Enterprise Service Architecture (ESA) SAPs
  initiative to standardize how enterprise
  applications provide Web Services interfaces.
• An Enterprise Service is a Web Service whose
  interfaces fit into a pattern with Create,
  Retrieve, Update, Delete, Query and Action
  operations named and defined according to a
  convention.
• Tools can take advantage of the conventions to
  discover and integrate compliant enterprise
  services.
• All SAP products to provide ESA compliant Web
  Services interfaces by 2007
• Microsoft, IBM, Cisco, EMC, Intel and Macromedia
  have licensed ESA from SAP.

17
ESA Architecture
Source SAP
18
How ESA fits in xSOA Layer 1?

• ESA is standardizing the service interfaces for
  business objects in the enterprise
• A convention on top of basic SOA standards to let
  tools discover and use services easily
• ESASOA EJBJ2EE

19

• xSOA Layer 2 Service Composition

20
What is xSOA Layer 2?

• Composition of web services
• For aggregation
• For generating higher level services that
  provide
• Filtering
• Summarizing
• Correlating
• Examples BPEL (Aggregation), EDA/BAM (Higher
  level services)

21

• Example in Layer-2
• BPEL

22
What is BPEL?

• Business process modeling has always been ad-hoc
  in vendor offerings. E.g., most tools cannot
  compensate when failures occur in long running
  transactions
• BPEL brings the benefits of standardization.
• Rich process model including parallel execution
  (flow), event handling, alarms, fault handlers
  and compensation handlers.
• Compensatory mechanisms for handling failures in
  long running transactions
• Have WSDL? BPEL can use it. Web Services of
  course! Legacy apps connected by WSIF via
  JCA/JDBC.
• Portability
• What it doesnt do,
• No user interaction. Semi automated process
  cannot be modeled.
• No in-built support for transformation

23
BPEL Use Case
Source Oracle
24
How BPEL fits in xSOA Layer 2?

• BPEL is all about service composition
• A BPEL process is also a Service! That is, the
  composite service can in turn be composed!
• Service aggregators thus become service providers
  by publishing the service descriptions of the
  composite service they create.

25

• Example in Layer-2
• BAM/EDA

26
What are BAM and EDA?

• Business Activity Monitoring (BAM) relies on
  Event Driven Architecture (EDA) to provide
  business leaders with dashboards that display
• The cumulative status as of now
• Business alerts that need to be acted on
• For example, lets say your inventory level drops
  down, business leaders need to know it
  immediately
• EDA is being implemented in the network layer to
  capture all application level events as they
  happen
• EDA uses Web Services to communicate events to
  BAM
• BAM consolidates application events into business
  information

27
BAM Architecture
28
How BAM and EDA fit in xSOA Layer 2?

• BAM provides higher level business information by
  filtering, summarizing and correlating event
  information obtained from EDA

29

• xSOA Layer 3 Management

30
What is xSOA Layer 3?

• Layer 3 addresses the challenges of management of
  Web Services
• Two distinct management services
• Operations
• Starting, Stopping, Configuring,
• Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)
• Example of Operations Mgmt. Web Services
  Management Framework (WSMF) Not covered here

31

• Example in Layer-3
• ESB

32
What is ESB?

• Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) helps manage large
  number of services by providing horizontal
  value-adds such as
• Security
• Transactions
• Reliability
• Service Virtualization
• Load Balancing
• Message Distribution (Fan out and in)

33
How does ESB Work?

• ESB works by using the extension mechanisms built
  into SOAP
• Message syntax and semantics can be extended with
  headers
• Messages can be intercepted and worked on by
  intermediaries
• Headers are not just syntax as in SMTP Headers.
  Semantics of who may/must process headers allows
  standardization of extensions. E.g., WS-Security
• How does the message get to Intermediaries?
• Implicit routing possible with SOAP-aware network
  devices
• Explicit routing possible with WS-Addressing.
  Assumes next-hop routing like in IP networks

34
ESB Architecture
Source Michael P. Papazoglou
35
ESB Use case Centralized Security
36
How ESB fits in xSOA Layer 3?

• Services can focus on their business logic and
  leave issues like reliability, transactions and
  security to be managed by ESB
• By factoring out all horizontal concerns into the
  bus, ESB enables easy development and management
  of a large number of services

37

• Conclusion

38
Conclusion

• We have seen examples of SOA evolution in real
  world using xSOA 3-layer stack as our guide
• EPCIS brings dynamic capabilities to supply chain
  management and business integration
• ESA standardizes Web Services interfaces to
  legacy applications
• BPEL aggregates Web Services into a business
  process
• BAM composes application events to higher level
  business information
• ESB focuses on quality of service

39
Thank You
pkrishna_at_aalayance.com chap_at_aalayance.com
40
Q A