Service-Oriented Architecture

Abstract

Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) is considered a piece of cohesive integration glue that ties all the available computing services together across an organization. In enterprise integration, SOA is essentially a set of design and implementation principles that can guide integration practitioners to design and develop interoperable support services that are derived from individual enterprise applications in an organization, facilitating smart integration across distributed applications so that all business domains in the organization can strive for a common business goal in a competitive way. This chapter first discusses SOA fundamentals, covering all the design principles and underlying supporting technologies. As organizations would have different business priorities in integrating their distributed applications, different practical integration entry points to SOA design and implementations are then articulated. Finally, Malvern iStore’s SOA attempts to meet the dynamics business needs are an illustrative example presented in this chapter.