Software as a service

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Software as a service

• A look at service oriented architecture (SOA)

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Software as a service

• Class Example
• Sit with your project teams
• We will assign you a task

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Introduction

• What is Software as a service?
• What are some advantages to SOA
• What are some disadvantages to SOA
• Why isnt it being used more widespread?
• Why is it an important issue to IS Students?

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Enterprise Software

• Enterprise Software
• The whole purpose of enterprise software is to
  let computers do the many repetitive tasks
  inherent in modern corporate operations
• However, one of the disadvantages of enterprise
  software has been that the enterprise often had
  to adjust its processes to fit the software
  rather than the other way around.
• Source Business Week Online, 3/19/2007
• Section Global Business

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The solution

• The great promise of SOA suggests that the
  marginal cost of creating the n-th application is
  zero, as all of the software required already
  exists to satisfy the requirements of other
  applications. Ideally, one requires only
  orchestration to produce a new application.
• Source http//www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/libr
  ary/ws-migratesoa/

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SOA Process Flow Example
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Service Oriented Architecture

• Service
• work done by one person or group that benefits
  another
• What makes a service is a topic of debate
• Is a logical representation of a repeatable
  business activity that has a specified outcome
• Is self-contained
• May be composed of other services
• Is a black box to consumers of the service
• Source http//opengroup.org/projects/soa/doc.tpl?
  gdid10632

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Service Oriented Architecture

• Software as a service
• High Cohesion and Low Coupling
• Must be consumable
• Much like Object oriented design

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Service Oriented Architecture

• What is needed for SOA
• Service itself
• The code written to carry out a specific task
• Consists of the functions, objects, and classes
  needed to process data and provide information
• Source http//opengroup.org/projects/soa/doc.tpl?
  gdid10632

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Service Oriented Architecture

• Interface
• Not physical
• Dictates how two things will interact
• WSDL Web Service Descriptor Language
• XML extensible markup language
• User defined tags
• XML's purpose is to aid information systems in
  sharing structured data, especially via the
  Internet, to encode documents, and to serialize
  data.
• http//www.boyzoid.com/comp/randomQuote.cfc?wsdl

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Service Oriented Architecture

• How will the two interfaces communicate
• SOAP Simple Object Access Protocol
• Derived from XML
• Uses Application Layer Protocols (usually HTTP)
• Transmits XML Messages from one interface to the
  next

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Service Oriented Architecture

• The Message
• Structured XML messages
• EXAMPLE Request
• ltSOAP-ENVBodygt
• ltns1doubleAnIntegerxmlnsns1"urnMySoapServices
  "gt
• ltparam1 xsitype"xsdint"gt123lt/param1gt
  lt/ns1doubleAnIntegergt lt/SOAP-ENVBodygt
• lt/SOAP-ENVEnvelopegt

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Service Oriented Architecture

• EXAMPLE Response
• ltSOAP-ENVBodygt
• ltns1doubleAnIntegerResponse xmlnsns1"urnMySo
  apServices" SOAPENVencodingStyle"http//schemas.
  xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/"gt
• ltreturn xsitype"xsdint"gt246lt/returngt
  lt/ns1doubleAnIntegerResponsegt
• lt/SOAP-ENVBodygt

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Service Oriented Architecture

• The information and/or data
• 123 was passed via SOAP to a web-service with a
  member method that doubles that number
• 246 was passed back via SOAP response
• It cant stop there
• Whatever application needed the number doubled
  may also be implemented as a service

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Sandwich example

• What were some of the services?
• Spread Condiments, place meat/cheese, assemble
  sandwich, cut sandwich
• What was the Interface?
• Paper plates, humans
• What was the message?
• Completed parts
• What was the Information?
• Parts but ultimately the completed Sandwich

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Service Oriented Architecture

• How do you Define how or what is needed to
  communicate with a service?
• BPEL Business process execution language
• Formally describes a business process so anyone
  can perform any or all of the steps in the
  process
• EXAMPLE A BPEL Program would describe what
  information is needed to perform an action but
  not describe how the actions is to be performed

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Service Oriented Architecture

• BPEL Engines and Designers
• Used by Business expert to model a process
• The resulting process template is then executed
  at application runtime, bringing together all of
  the services needed for the process

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Service oriented Architecture
On overall Look at SOA and its invocation
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Questions?
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Advantages of Service Oriented Architecture

• What are some advantages to implementing SOA?

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Advantages

• Knits together disparate pieces of software from
  different vendors to accomplish a specific task
• links up software programs that once were
  incompatible
• Separates software from the OS
• Services can be consumed on multiple platforms
• Makes code highly cohesive and uncoupled

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Advantages

• May allow legacy systems to integrate with
  current applications that utilize newer
  technologies
• Gives access to parts of a business system to
  external clients or suppliers
• Spreads costs over the whole business
• Reduces need for PCs
• ELIMINATES REDUNDANCY!!!!

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Advantages

• Small business
• With limited IT resources you can access services
  provided by other companies to do some tasks
• Instead of buying a system you can subscribe thus
  if it is too expensive you can unsubscribe
• Source http//www.computerworld.com/action/articl
  e.do?commandviewArticleBasicarticleId9001155so
  urceNLT_ROInlid44

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Success Stories - Verizon

• Consolidating application development was key for
  Verizon, which found itself with multiple groups
  often duplicating efforts after the merger with
  Bell Atlantic and GTE

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Success Stories - Verizon

• Executives focused on the 250 most-important
  business transactions the company performed, such
  as verifying customer credit histories and
  looking up customer information
• On average, each transaction had been developed
  five to 25 times one was deployed 45 different
  times

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Success Stories - Verizon

• Set a target in 2004 of building 10 applications
  and 10 transactions on the IT Workbench as Web
  services. The company instead built 57
  applications and 200 transactions

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Success Stories - Verizon

• At the beginning of the year, Verizon was
  supporting 10,000 Web services transactions per
  day by the end of 2004, the daily average had
  skyrocketed to 2.5 million to 3 million per day.
• Has helped the company slash its IT budget by 50
  by eliminating redundant systems
• http//www.computerworld.com/industrytopics/energy
  /story/0,10801,101084,00.html

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Other Successes

• Procurement systems
• Order point automation
• Allow suppliers to view inventory levels by
  exposing an inventory management service
• Allows for on-time deliveries and a reduction in
  buying expenses

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Other Successes

• salesforce.com
• Manages Marketing, Sales, Leads, support, etc
• Companies currently using salesforce.com
• Häagen-dazs
• Papa Murphy's
• https//login.salesforce.com/

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Disadvantages?

• What could be some pitfalls of software as a
  service?

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Disadvantages

• Trust issues
• Who has access to information and services?
• Can be protected by keys but is yet another way
  to get at data
• Is the code behind the service accurate?
• User acceptance
• Reliability
• Network Availability must be increased

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Disadvantages

• Maintenance
• May be difficult to pinpoint bugs and problems if
  services are deployed all over and highly
  integrated
• If one service is unavailable due to maintenance,
  others could be affected

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Disadvantages

• Higher Infrastructure costs
• Network uptime must be maximized
• Disaster Recovery Plans
• More server equipment needed (large datacenters)
• Response time
• Is HTTP a reliable protocol?
• Is XML the best way to transmit messages?

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Disadvantages

• Network Failure
• More global (think WAN)
• Latency issues for overseas operations
• If a router fails all traffic will be re-routed
  thus increasing network latency and making
  services useless

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Disadvantages

• New way of thinking for developers
• Re-education
• Learning Curve

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Disadvantages

• Centralized IT but Business is not
• Marketing develops sales projection service
• Finance becomes dependant on that for projecting
  profits
• Marketing wants to modify and update service and
  change how it operates
• Finance then would have to update their software
  to adhere to changes in Marketing service

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Disadvantages

• Parallel Processing and Real-time
• Difficult to organize two separate process that
  communicate over HTTP to operate in parallel.
• Wasted CPU cycles on server waiting for another
  operation to complete
• Real-time is unlikely whereas a local process
  could execute instantly
• Source http//www.computerworld.com/action/articl
  e.do?commandviewArticleBasicarticleId9001155so
  urceNLT_ROInlid44

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Barriers to entry

• Infrastructure
• To mitigate risks involved, substantial
  investments in infrastructure must be made to
  maximize uptime and reliability
• Personnel
• Re-educating
• Hiring more Business experts to orchestrate
  services

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Barriers to entry

• Information systems already work
• Why re-design systems that work?
• Slow process to move towards SOA
• Security
• Increased security budget to lock down interfaces

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Barriers to entry

• Organization
• How do you expose service to the people who need
  them?
• How do you describe services functionality?
• Source http//www.computerworld.com/action/articl
  e.do?commandviewArticleBasicarticleId9001155so
  urceNLT_ROInlid44

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New Career Paths

• Software Engineering
• A combination of code developer with a focus on
  modeling of the business situation and solving
  the problem with software
• Business Engineering
• Defining business processes that meet the goals
  of the organization

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New Career Paths

• Software Orchestrator
• Combination of the above two
• Take business requirements and orchestrates
  services and organizes them to fit the business
  process to meet requirements
• Source http//www.cio.com.au/index.php/id1350140
  708

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Importance to IS Students

• If SOA reaches its potential
• SOA could integrate with OO and change the way of
  thinking in enterprise situations
• Be aware of this and stay on top of current IS
  issues to avoid becoming obsolete!

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Importance to IS students

• SOA fits the description of IS
• Focuses less on intricate development and more on
  process.
• Using Technical skills to organize services to
  fit the process, not the other way around

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Conclusion

• SOA is an important issue in IS
• Anticipate more exposure to SOA
• Think of the advantages and disadvantages
• Find ways to exploit web services to your
  advantage
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vuOQcjvUHZ0k

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Questions