Service-oriented Architecture Projects Research Articles

Analytical Evaluation of SOA and SCRUM Business Process Management Approaches for IoT-Based Services Development

The SCRUM approach and Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) framework are critical in assessing the factors that influence the efficiency of a business process and ensuring that business objectives are fulfilled, and the process is on track to meet those objectives. Flexibility and change adoption are critical features for both SCRUM and SOA approaches. Even though both sides encourage agility, the integration of the two independent concepts (SOA is the architectural framework while SCRUM is the development process) should be considered before being used in software management and development projects. This study assessed and analyzed both SCRUM and SOA’s diverse and different software architectural frameworks and development methodologies as well as their environment, which is integrated with the context of software project management and development setup for the software development industry. In addition, this study explores the similarities between the SCRUM process model and the SOA architectural framework to see if they are compatible and, if so, how they may be combined to enhance SOA-based projects. This research also looks at how to build and use a SCRUM methodology for large-scale SOA projects. As a result, SCRUM was chosen as the software development methodology for a research and development project based on SOA. In terms of project development and implementation, the complete project structure is made up of eight main parts.

An Approach for Effort Estimation of Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) Projects

In the last few decades SOA (Service Oriented Architecture) has become the new trend in the IT industry. Many organizations tend to migrate to SOA in order to cope with the rapidly changing business. Effort estimation of SOA projects has become a real challenge to project managers due to the limited literatures addressing this issue. The traditional effort estimation techniques do not fit SOA projects entirely, as SOA has unique characteristics were not addressed by the traditional cost estimation approaches. These unique SOA characteristics include: loose coupling, reusability, composability and discoverability. On the other hand, cost estimation approaches that were proposed to estimate SOA projects, are still immature and most of them are impractical. They cannot be used in real life projects, as they are more guidelines than actual practical cost estimation approaches. This paper proposes an effort estimation approach for SOA projects that has been applied to different variety of services. It considers SOA characteristics and the various cost factors for different types of services including available, migrated, new and composed services. This proposed approach provides effort estimation technique for each type of service. The proposed approach also gives effort distribution among project phases for easily resources allocation. This framework has been applied to real life projects in the IT industry as the SOA project is divided into its component services and each service is estimated solely based on its type. The services' efforts are then aggregated to calculate the project’s overall effort. The estimated effort relative error in the case studies ranges from 3.66 % and 19.14%.

Service-oriented Architecture Projects in Practice: A Study of a Shared Document Service Implementation

Abstract This paper reports on a case study focusing on service-oriented architecture (SOA) projects in practice. The aim of these projects has been to develop a shared document service supporting different business divisions in a large Norwegian governmental institution. The research question guiding this research is: How are SOA projects carried out in practice? What are the challenges of developing shared services in service-oriented architecture? SOA projects are accompanied by a complex socio-technical system development environment. In the present study we followed parallel system development processes and identified several issues associated with competence requirements, distributed coordination principles and control, lack of communication, tuning of parallel projects, and selection of appropriate project management approaches and system development methods. Clearly, there was a difference between undertaking a system development project within one organizational unit (silo) compared to the development of shared services to provide support across a large organization. Findings demonstrate that the complexity of SOA projects was underestimated by the project managers, and ad hoc governance was practiced in terms of control, coordination, and communication. To capture the entire system development context of an SOA project, a holistic approach and mind-set comprising time management and fine tuning of all parallel SD activities is necessary. Organizational maturity to carry out SOA projects is also of significance. The study has implications for SOA adopters in general and for system developers and project managers working in an SOA context in particular.

Information Technology Skill Management Strategies for Implementing New Technologies: A Case of Service-Oriented Architecture

Managing human resources and skills for information technology (IT) presents a challenging task for executives, more so when new ITs are involved. Lack of familiarity with the technology, the learning curve associated with its incorporation, and the relative paucity of skilled personnel serve to alter the strategies for management of human resources and skills. This paper presents a system dynamics approach for examining alternative strategies for skill management and supporting decisions during the implementation of service-oriented architecture (SOA) in an organization. For projects involving SOA, the initial planning and implementation of the underlying architecture entail higher costs and slower delivery of initial SOA applications. The use of appropriate IT human resource management strategies for SOA projects is critical for successful SOA implementation. The complexity associated with the fluctuating demand for IT skills, coupled with the need for highly skilled senior architects and professional developers in SOA projects, as well as inevitable delays in skill acquisition, makes this a challenging task. This paper examines the impact of alternative staffing strategies under various environmental conditions and provides guidance for staffing decisions. Using a design science methodology, it employs system dynamics as a vehicle for allowing human resource managers to examine the impact of alternative staffing strategies under a variety of environmental conditions.

Towards an Understanding of the Business Process Analyst: An Analysis of Competencies

The increase in adoption of business process management (BPM) and service oriented architecture (SOA) has created a high demand for qualified professionals with a plethora of skills. However, despite the growing amount of literature available on the topics of BPM and SOA, little research has been conducted around developing a detailed list of competencies required for SOA and BPM professionals. According to Gartner’s 2011 predictions, by 2014 there will be a growing emphasis on process-related skills and competencies to create competitive advantage. The purpose of this paper is to provide an analysis of the required competencies of the business process analyst. The new business process analyst role is seen as indispensable to the success of BPM and SOA projects. This qualitative research used data collected through semi-structured interviews and through subsequent thematic analysis; a business process analyst competency framework emerged. The findings show that the business analyst competencies form a foundation for the business process analyst role. Even more than the business analyst role, the business process analyst requires strong interpersonal competencies and strengths as well as both left brain (statistical) and right brain (emotional) thinking. Business and organisational knowledge is seen as important while technical competencies were considered the least important. Although this research is positioned in South Africa, where the availability of skills is a major challenge facing the establishment of the business process analyst role, the resultant framework should be useful for any information systems educators designing curriculum for this new role and for organisations hoping to employ these professionals.

Service-Oriented Architecture Adoption

Service-oriented architecture (SOA) have been adopted by organizations in a wide variety of industries, however, best practices have still yet to mature. This article, which is part of a larger study on SOA, develops a normative decision model introducing key factors that influence the timing and approach of adopting a SOA. The decision model is based on the results of multiple case studies of organizations that had either employed or were considering implementing a service-oriented architecture project. The results indicate that there are four main areas an information technology (IT) manager needs to assess to determine when and how to move towards a SOA: the maturity of relevant standards, the technology gap, the organizational gap, and the nature of the benefits expected from a SOA. Analyzing these results suggest that differences in the business environment need to be considered in the decision of when and how an IT manager should pursue the move to a service-oriented architecture.

Gaining insight into the health of SOA infrastructures

As service-oriented architecture (SOA) is evolving from theory to practical applications, the demand for deriving actual benefits from the infrastructure flexibility it enables is increasing rapidly. However, an SOA implementation often poses capacity and performance management challenges for the IT (information technology) delivery organization, particularly when dispersed business applications run on heterogeneous systems and various internal and external infrastructure components are used to complete business service transactions. To help organizations that are considering or have engaged in SOA infrastructure implementations, IBM has developed innovative and non-intrusive capabilities to help determine the optimal infrastructure architecture for a particular SOA project and identify areas of performance improvement for running an SOA infrastructure. These capabilities are provisioned as infrastructure Healthcheck services for SOA, reflecting a trusted IT service management approach that focuses on prevention or a solution to an IT infrastructure capacity and performance management problem. This paper presents the development rationale for the key service delivery components, including the analysis process, the use of global (i.e., worldwide) delivery capabilities, and the proprietary assets and patented technologies used in performing the services. Insight into how these services can lead to significant positive results is exemplified via several commercial client engagements.

Reengineering for service oriented architectures: A strategic decision model for integration versus migration

Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) is a popular paradigm at present because it provides a standards-based conceptual framework for flexible and adaptable enterprise wide systems. This implies that most present systems need to be reengineered to become SOA compliant. However, SOA reengineering projects raise serious strategic as well as technical questions that require management oversight. This paper, based on practical experience with SOA projects, presents a decision model for SOA reengineering projects that combines strategic and technical factors with cost-benefit analysis for integration versus migration decisions. The paper identifies the key issues that need to be addressed in enterprise application reengineering projects for SOA, examines the strategic alternatives, explains how the alternatives can be evaluated based on architectural and cost-benefit considerations and illustrates the main ideas through a detailed case study.

Web Services, Service-Oriented Computing, and Service-Oriented Architecture

Service-oriented architecture (SOA), Web services, and service-oriented computing (SOC) have become the buzz words of the day for many in the business world. It seems that virtually every company has implemented, is in the midst of implementing, or is seriously considering SOA projects, Web services projects, or service-oriented computing. A problem many organizations face when entering the SOA world is that there are nearly as many definitions of SOA as there are organizations adopting it. Further complicating the issue is an unclear picture of the value added from adopting the SOA or Web services paradigm. This article attempts to shed some light on the definition of SOA and the difficulties of assessing the value of SOA or Web services via return on investment (ROI) or nontraditional approaches, examines the scant body of evidence empirical that exists on the topic of SOA, and highlights potential research directions in the area.