Service Oriented Architecture Principles Research Articles

Good practices in designing a communication channel architecture for secure async flexible distributed collaboration

Abstract In this paper we present a set of good practices in the design of a security-centric architecture for a Communication Channel that can be used to secure a Loosely-Coupled distributed platform, over unreliable communication mediums. The proposed practices are derived from designing a complete architecture that is modular and designed to support principles of Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) and the common functional requirements of a wide range of applications, including cybersecurity, smart power grids and industrial Internet of Things (IoT). The architecture was developed and implemented as part of the BIECO project, and is based around open standards such as Open Platform Communications United Architecture (OPC-UA). The key feature of the architecture is that it enables secure asynchronous near-real-time communication between a large number of nodes in a multimodal setup, without the need of any Service to know its place within the tool-chain. Based on our experience with building this system and based on the good results obtained, we are presenting a list of lessons learnt, recommendations for better communication channel modules within loosely coupled distributed systems.

Evaluating Service Computing Framework with Scrum through a Case Study

The Service Computing Framework with Scrum (SCFS) is a framework that combines Services Computing Systems Engineering (SCSE) with the Scrum Framework. This framework was created to produce a system with a good service concept by following the SCSE workflow in an agile manner through the application of Scrum principles. This paper will provide an overview of how to evaluate the SCFS framework using SOA and Agile principles through a case study. The research methodology used in this paper is a Design Science Research Methodology (DSRM). This research results in project evaluations using SCFS with good Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) parameter results. The SCFS framework can also be used in Agile development environments with fairly good parameters of velocity, story points, sprint burn down, release burn up, value delivered, and job satisfaction. In case studies conducted, this framework can help accelerate the release of service systems. The first release on the test only took 34 working days, 18 working days to get the second release, and 21 working days to get the third release. If done as a whole in one cycle, the service system will take approximately 73 working days to be used.

Service-Oriented Network Virtualization toward Convergence of Networking and Cloud Computing

A holistic approach that makes it possible to control, manage, and optimize both computing resources and networking in a Cloud environment is required because of the crucial role that networking plays in Cloud computing. This results in a convergence of networking and Cloud computing. As a crucial feature for the next generation of networking, network virtualization is being implemented in the Internet and telecommunications sectors. It is anticipated that virtualization will bridge the gap between these two fields as a potential enabler of profound changes in the communications and computing domains. When applied to network virtualization, Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) creates a Network-as-a-Service (NaaS) paradigm that may significantly facilitate the convergence of networking and Cloud computing. The use of SOA in network virtualization has recently received a lot of attention from both academia and industry. Although numerous pertinent research papers have been published, they are currently dispersed across a variety of subject areas in the literature, such as cloud computing, telecommunications, computer networking, and Web services. Specifically, we first introduce the SOA principle and review recent research progress on applying SOA to support network virtualization in both telecommunications and the Internet. In this article, we present a comprehensive survey of the most recent developments in service-oriented network virtualization for supporting Cloud computing, particularly from the perspective of network and Cloud convergence through NaaS. Next, we discuss the most recent advancements in network service description, discovery, and composition, as well as a framework for network-to-cloud convergence based on service-oriented network virtualization. We also talk about the problems these technologies face because of network-cloud convergence and the research opportunities in these areas. Our goal is to get researchers interested in this new interdisciplinary field.

Geoinformation Portal as a Component of Unified Geoinformation Environment

The relevance and necessity of the implementation and use of geoinformation systems for military purposes is due to the general increase in the requirements of the troops (forces) for the efficiency, completeness and quality of the information support of the management process. The armed aggression of the Russian federation against Ukraine creates new challenges to the state’s information security and necessitates a review of the requirements for information support in general and for geoinformation support in particular. The substantiation of the principles of creation and functioning of the Geoinformation Portal of the Armed Forces of Ukraine as an integral part of the Unified Geoinformation Environment of the Armed Forces of Ukraine are shown in the article. The paper determined that the foundation of the Unified Geoinformation Environment of the Armed Forces of Ukraine should be a service-oriented architecture (SOA) of distributed geodatabases, that provides a common platform for all subjects and users to access the resources of the Unified Automated Management System of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The Unified Geoinformation Environment (UGE) of the Armed Forces of Ukraine should be formed as a set (network) of interconnected geoportals, the purpose of that is to consolidate information on spatial data available in the Unified Automated Management System of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, that are processed and provided for use in the form of geoservices as well as creating a single entry points of users into this environment. UGE of the Armed Forces of Ukraine should provide access to data stored in the system of distributed geodatabases. The format and method of using the services should be based on the use of national, international and military standards, that are a single, agreed and approved set of data presentation standards, interfaces, as well as computer programs developed according to the principle of service-oriented architecture for all types of armed forces.

Geoinformation Portal as a Component of Unified Geoinformation Environment

The relevance and necessity of the implementation and use of geoinformation systems for military purposes is due to the general increase in the requirements of the troops (forces) for the efficiency, completeness and quality of the information support of the management process. The armed aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine creates new challenges to the state’s information security and necessitates a review of the requirements for information support in general and for geoinformation suppo rt in particular. The paper determined that the foundation of the Unified Geoinformation Environment of the Armed Forces should be a service-oriented architecture (SOA) of distributed geodatabases, that provides a common platform for all subjects and users to access the resources of the Unified Automated Management System of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The Unified Geoinformation Environment (UGE) of the Armed Forces should be formed as a set (network) of interconnected geoportals, the purpose of that is to consolidate information on spatial data available in the Unified Automated Management System of the Armed Forces, that are processed and provided for use in the form of geoservices as well as creating a single-entry point of users into this environment. UGE of the Armed Forces of Ukraine should provide access to data stored in the system of distributed geodatabases. The format and method of using the services should be based on the use of national, international and military standards, that are a single, agreed and approved set of data presentation standards, interfaces, as well as computer programs developed according to the principle of service-oriented architecture for all types of armed forces.

A reputation assessment model for trustful service recommendation

Nowadays, software systems are mainly Web front-based, Cloud-deployed and accessible by a wide audience over the Internet. These online systems commonly rely on Service-oriented Architecture principles, where they are built as orchestrations of RESTful (and in some rare cases as SOAP-based) services. Integrating new services in an existing orchestration is a challenging and risky task because trustworthiness of these services is not guaranteed throughout their lifetime. Reputation of services is a good indicator about the overall quality of services, because it reflects consumer satisfaction regarding the service-offered functionality and quality. Thus, reputation of services could be considered in the selection and recommendation of trustworthy services. In this paper, we present a framework for the management of web service reputation to conduct a better service recommendation. We present a reputation assessment model that aggregates fair user feedback ratings. The model includes a mechanism that prevents the introduction of malicious feedback ratings, by penalizing detected specious users. In addition, this framework includes a bootstrapping technique for estimating reputation of newcomer services based on neighbor similarity and initial advertised QoS. A set of experiments has been conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed framework. The results of these experiments highlighted the potential of our framework. These are presented at the end of the paper.

A comparative study on multi-agent and service-oriented microgrid automation systems from energy internet perspective

The current advancements of energy, information, communication, and automation technologies and their integration have provided ways for the energy industry to transform into cleaner energy systems. This transition has contributed to the concept called energy internet. The recent energy technologies provide clean energy generation, storage and demand response through distributed energy resources. Information, communication, and automation technologies aim to provide supporting software tools and enabling mechanisms to automate the operation and control of those resources in a coordinated way. Thus, researchers and the software industry are developing software frameworks and platforms to support energy system automation. Commonly, most of the frameworks follow the design principles of either multi-agent systems (MAS) or service-oriented architecture (SOA). However, there are many frameworks and no straightforward criteria to select which one to implement in energy systems’ automation applications to fulfill the energy internet vision. This study provides a conceptual investigation of MAS- and SOA-based software solutions by designing a use case for microgrid application automation considering its expansion for enabling energy internet. Two software frameworks, RIAPS and Arrowhead, have been selected as the candidates of MAS and SOA from the literature study. This study shows that neither MAS or SOA approach alone might not meet the requirements of microgrid automation and energy internet. Consequently, a combined approach of MAS and SOA is proposed.

Towards Intelligent, Programmable, and Open Railway Networks

The virtualization and automation of network functions will be key features of future high-speed railway networks, which have to provide dependable, safe, and secure services. The virtualization of railway network functions will enable functions such as train control, train integrity protection, shunting control, and trackside monitoring and maintenance to be virtualized and to be run on general-purpose hardware. Network function virtualization combined with edge computing can deliver dynamic, low-latency, and reliable services. The automation of railway operations can be achieved by embedding intelligence into the network to optimize the railway operation performance and to enhance the passenger experience. This paper presents an innovative railway network architecture that features distributed intelligence, function cloudification and virtualization, openness, and programmability. The focus is on time-tolerant and time-sensitive intelligent services designed to follow the principles of service-oriented architecture. The interaction between identified logical identities is illustrated by use cases. The paper provides some details of the design of the interface between distributed intelligent services and presents the results of an emulation of the interface performance.

Ambient intelligence governance review: from service-oriented to self-service.

The current generation of connected devices and the Internet of Things augment people’s capabilities through ambient intelligence. Ambient Intelligence (AmI) support systems contain applications consuming available services in the environment to serve users. A well-known design of these applications follows a service architecture style and implement artificial intelligence mechanisms to maintain an awareness of the context: The service architecture style enables the distribution of capabilities and facilitates interoperability. Intelligence and context-awareness provide an adaptation of the environment to improve the interaction. Smart objects in distributed deployments and the increasing machine awareness of devices and people context also lead us to architectures, including self-governed policies providing self-service. We have systematically reviewed and analyzed ambient system governance considering service-oriented architecture (SOA) as a reference model. We applied a systematic mapping process obtaining 198 papers for screening (out of 712 obtained after conducting searches in research databases). We then reviewed and categorized 68 papers related to 48 research projects selected by fulfilling ambient intelligence and SOA principles and concepts. This paper presents the result of our analysis, including the existing governance designs, the distribution of adopted characteristics, and the trend to incorporate service in the context-aware process. We also discuss the identified challenges and analyze research directions.

A Novel Micro-services Cluster Based Framework for Autonomous Vehicles

Modern technologies like digital spaces, intelligent transportation, and digital operations are faced with technical challenges related to data capturing, data processing, data storage, data security, communication, etc. Ensuring security and reliable message propagation among autonomous vehicles is a major challenging task. Establishing appropriate environment for developing vehicular-based solutions by the vehicle manufactures increases their estimated cost and time. Hence, to minimize this problem, this proposal aims to introduce Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) principles, to access trust based solutions as simple cloud based services by the clients. We propose a framework to integrate three mandatory vehicular applications namely trust estimation, secured message dissemination, and routing as cloud-based microservices. We also propose an innovative CipherText Policy Attribute Based Encryption (CP-ABE) algorithm to ensure confidentiality of data by an access control system in highly dynamic and automated network. The services are deployed as Docker images using advanced concepts of Dockers and Containers. Dockers coordinate the orchestration of multiple tasks related to the proposed microservices and help to implement the services in cross-platform environments. These services can be implemented in both autonomous and manual vehicular systems. The service providers can charge the clients based on the usage of the services. A detailed experimental analysis is accomplished to evaluate the performance of the proposed micro services in cross platform environments; further, an extensive simulation is performed to assess the individual performance of the proposed vehicular applications.

The Strategic Goals of -Using Service Oriented Architecture Principles

Organizations use heterogonous systems and legacy systems, they are implemented at different platforms, different databases, and different language programs. These systems need to exchange information and reuse the same functionality to achieve integration between these systems. Many Software companies failed to achieve information follow and reuse the same functionality. This paper introduces guidelines introduces Service-Oriented Architecture Principles guidelines and rules to help Applications developers to achieve information integrations and reuse the same functionality, SOA principles providing rules and guidelines that specify exactly how solution logic should be decomposed and molded into technology solutions

System of Systems Lifecycle Management—A New Concept Based on Process Engineering Methodologies

In order to tackle interoperability issues of large-scale automation systems, SOA (Service-Oriented Architecture) principles, where information exchange is manifested by systems providing and consuming services, have already been introduced. However, the deployment, operation, and maintenance of an extensive SoS (System of Systems) mean enormous challenges for system integrators as well as network and service operators. The existing lifecycle management approaches do not cover all aspects of SoS management; therefore, an integrated solution is required. The purpose of this paper is to introduce a new lifecycle approach, namely the SoSLM (System of Systems Lifecycle Management). This paper first provides an in-depth description and comparison of the most relevant process engineering methodologies and ITSM (Information Technology Service Management) frameworks, and how they affect various lifecycle management strategies. The paper’s novelty strives to introduce an Industry 4.0-compatible PLM (Product Lifecycle Management) model and to extend it to cover SoS management-related issues on well-known process engineering methodologies. The presented methodologies are adapted to the PLM model, thus creating the recommended SoSLM model. This is supported by demonstrations of how the IIoT (Industrial Internet of Things) applications and services can be developed and handled. Accordingly, complete implementation and integration are presented based on the proposed SoSLM model, using the Arrowhead framework that is available for IIoT SoS.

Automated and Secure Onboarding for System of Systems

The Internet of Things (IoT) is rapidly changing the number of connected devices and the way they interact with each other. This increases the need for an automated and secure onboarding procedure for IoT devices, systems and services. Device manufacturers are entering the market with internet connected devices, ranging from small sensors to production devices, which are subject of security threats specific to IoT. The onboarding procedure is required to introduce a new device in a System of Systems (SoS) without compromising the already onboarded devices and the underlying infrastructure. Onboarding is the process of providing access to the network and registering the components for the first time in an IoT/SoS framework, thus creating a chain of trust from the hardware device to its hosted software systems and their provided services. The large number and diversity of device hardware, software systems and running services raises the challenge to establish a generic onboarding procedure. In this paper, we present an automated and secure onboarding procedure for SoS. We have implemented the onboarding procedure in the Eclipse Arrowhead framework. However, it can be easily adapted for other IoT/SoS frameworks that are based on Service-oriented Architecture (SoA) principles. The automated onboarding procedure ensures a secure and trusted communication between the new IoT devices and the Eclipse Arrowhead framework. We show its application in a smart charging use case and perform a security assessment.

Formalization of SOA concepts with mathematical foundation

With the development of the IT industry, agility and dynamicity are the two expected characteristics from any business enterprise. Service oriented architecture (SOA) is emerging as a promising approach aiming to address the current trends/needs of enterprise business applications. The current work aims at giving an overview of the conceptual model of SOA based on set theory approach. Also, it posits mathematical definitions for service, logical service, environment service and application definition with the help of general systems theory and mathematical foundation. With the help of mathematical model, the definition and functionality of services enhances SOA principles which can be used efficiently in integrating heterogeneous components.

Topic-aware Web Service Representation Learning

The advent of Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) has brought a fundamental shift in the way in which distributed applications are implemented. An overwhelming number of Web-based services (e.g., APIs and Mashups) have leveraged this shift and furthered development. Applications designed with SOA principles are typically characterized by frequent dependencies with one another in the form of heterogeneous networks, i.e., annotation relations between tags and services, and composition relations between Mashups and APIs. Although prior work has shown the utility gained by exploring these networks, their analysis is still in its infancy. This article develops an approach to learning representations of the Web service network, which seeks to embed Web services in low-dimensional continuous vectors with preserved information of the network structure, functional tags, and service descriptions, such that services with similar functional properties and network structures are mapped together in the learned latent space. We first propose a topic generative model for constructing two topic distribution networks (Mashup-Topic and API-Topic) from the service content. Then, we present an efficient optimization process to derive low-dimensional vector representations of Web services from a tri-layer bipartite network with the Mashup-Topic and API-Topic networks on two ends and the Mashup-API composition network in the middle. Experiments on real-word datasets have verified that our approach is effective to learn robust low-rank service representations, i.e., 25% F1-measure gain over the state-of-the-art in Web service recommendation task.

Decision as a Service (DaaS): A Service-Oriented Architecture Approach for Decisions in Processes

Separating decision modelling from the processes modelling concern recently gained significant support in literature, as incorporating both concerns into a single model impairs the scalability, maintainability, flexibility, and understandability of both processes and decisions. Most notably the introduction of the Decision Model and Notation (DMN) standard by the Object Management Group provides a suitable solution for externalising decisions from processes and automating decision enactments for processes. This article introduces a systematic way of tackling the separation of the decision modelling concern from process modelling by providing a Decision as a Service (DaaS) layered Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) which approaches decisions as automated and externalised services that processes need to invoke on demand to obtain the decision outcome. The DaaS mechanism is elucidated by a formalisation of DMN constructs and the relevant layer elements. Furthermore, DaaS is evaluated against the fundamental characteristics of the SOA paradigm, proving its contribution in terms of abstraction, reusability, loose coupling, and other pertinent SOA principles. Additionally, the benefits of the DaaS design on process-decision modelling and mining are discussed. Finally, the DaaS design is illustrated on a real-life event log of a bank loan application and approval process, and the SOA maturity of DaaS is assessed.

IXen: context-driven service oriented architecture for the internet of things in the cloud

Abstract iXen’s ambition is to overcome the limits of existing IoT platforms in the cloud and deal with challenges of security and interoperability. Therefore, iXen is interoperable and expandable (i.e. services can be added or removed) while being secure by design: access to services is granted only to authorized users (or other services) based on user roles and access policies. Leveraging principles of Service Oriented Architectures (SOA) and the most recent EU standards for context information management, iXen is implemented as a composition of RESTful micro-services in the cloud. iXen adopts a 3-tier architecture design model. The first layer supports connectivity of the vast diversity of IoT devices with the cloud. The second (middle) layer implements IoT data functionality including, database, security and context management services allowing devices to publish information and, users (or other services) subscribed to devices to get notified about the availability of this information. Flow-based programming services in the middle layer allow fast development of new applications by wiring together IoT devices and services. The third layer makes IoT applications available to customers based on subscriptions. The experimental analysis shows that iXen is responding in real-time to complex service requests under heavy workloads.

Healthcare Associated Infections: An Interoperable Infrastructure for Multidrug Resistant Organism Surveillance.

Prevention and surveillance of healthcare associated infections caused by multidrug resistant organisms (MDROs) has been given increasing attention in recent years and is nowadays a major priority for health care systems. The creation of automated regional, national and international surveillance networks plays a key role in this respect. A surveillance system has been designed for the Abruzzo region in Italy, focusing on the monitoring of the MDROs prevalence in patients, on the appropriateness of antibiotic prescription in hospitalized patients and on foreseeable interactions with other networks at national and international level. The system has been designed according to the Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) principles, and Healthcare Service Specification (HSSP) standards and Clinical Document Architecture Release 2 (CDAR2) have been adopted. A description is given with special reference to implementation state, specific design and implementation choices and next foreseeable steps. The first release will be delivered at the Complex Operating Unit of Infectious Diseases of the Local Health Authority of Pescara (Italy).

Services Computing Systems Engineering Framework: A Proposition and Evaluation Through SOA Principles and Analysis Model

Services computing utilizes service-based technology to build IT services systems. A comprehensive understanding of service-based engineering framework is fully needed to build and to deliver the systems. This article outlines the proposition and the evaluation of services computing systems engineering framework based on service oriented architecture (SOA) principles. This framework is used as a guide to build services computing systems based on SOA. A maximize function-based analysis model is built to examine the feasibility of the framework and represent the optimization model of the processes. The findings indicate that the proposed framework can be well implemented in building the systems. The results show that the proposed framework satisfies the implementation requirements of the SOA principles. Furthermore, the analysis model demonstrates good results throughout the whole stages of the framework. This article contributes to practical knowledge in providing a systematic guide to build service-oriented systems.

DYNAMIC REST SERVICES ORCHESTRATION USING THE KNOWLEDGE BASE

The approach to organizing the automated calculations’ execution process using the web services (in particular, REST-services) is reviewed. The given solution will simplify the procedure of introduction of the new functionality in applied systems built according to the service-oriented architecture and microservice architecture principles. The main idea of the proposed solution is in maximum division of the server-side logic development and the client-side logic, when clients are used to set the abstract computation goals without any dependencies to existing applied services. It is proposed to rely on the centralized scheme to organize the computations (named as orchestration) and to put to the knowledge base the set of rules used to build (in multiple steps) the concrete computational scenario from the abstract goal. It is proposed to include the computing task’s execution subsystem to the software architecture of the applied system. This subsystem is composed of the service which is processing the incoming requests for execution, the service registry and the orchestration service. The clients send requests to the execution subsystem without any references to the real-world services to be called. The service registry searches the knowledge base for the corresponding input request template, then the abstract operation description search for the request template is performed. Each abstract operation may already have its implementation in the form of workflow composed of invocations of the real applied services’ operations. In case of absence of the corresponding workflow in the database, this workflow implementation could be synthesized dynamically according to the input and output data and the functionality description of the abstract operation and registered applied services. The workflows are executed by the orchestrator service. Thus, adding some new functions to the client side can be possible without any changes at the server side. And vice versa, adding new services can impact the execution of the calculations without updating the clients.