The service-oriented architecture (SOA) It is the framework on which communications between different services are built. Their role is fundamental to allow not only their interaction, but also its effectiveness., making it feasible for the purpose for which they were designed to be accomplished.
SOA combines two important factors:
- The simplicity of object access protocols (SOAP) on which web services are focused.
- The complexity of allowing interactions between them of a totally autonomous and independent nature.
And is that, for that purpose, service-oriented architecture is effective, to such an extent that it is even feasible for one entity to manage a unit of work on behalf of another, or that different consumers can communicate with the service in different ways.
For many, it is the ideal answer to carry out negotiations between suppliers and consumers, thanks to these properties and the protocol flexibility environment in which it is embedded.
Service-oriented architecture in daily operations
Many everyday situations involve an interaction with service-oriented architecture. The most common example is any purchase made over the Internet.. The procedure could be summarized as follows:
- First you access the selected catalog or online store.
- Then you have access to the list of products for sale, whose order is specified by means of a service, communicating with an inventory application. This enables you to determine whether the requested posts, or those who show interest, are available in the sizes and colors for which the search has been made.
- Once the user decided on a product, proceed to purchase. At that moment, the order details and shipping data are sent to another service that calculates the total amount of the transaction, informs about the delivery time of the requested post and provides a tracking number.
- Once the purchase is completed, another service will allow the customer to know the status of their order at any time, entering the tracking number in the respective application.
Communication is essential in this procedure where, Even though from the user's point of view you can only see a single transaction, from a systems approach there have been several interactions between many different web services in a SOA framework, how could it be otherwise.
Photo credits: “Mobile shopping” of bplanet
The principles governing service-oriented architecture
There are no standards in relation to exact composition of a Service Oriented Architecture, but some of the most important and commonly applied principles are as follows:
- Standardized service contract: implies the adherence to a communication contract by virtue of which the services are defined and described, both as a whole and in greater detail.
- Services abstraction: This conceptualization does not refer to its usability but to the logic behind each service.
- Reuse of services: in pursuit of the development and maintenance economy, the logic is divided into services with the intention of promoting your re-use.
- Autonomy of services: This principle is applicable to the design and execution phases and refers to the control that the services have over the logic they encapsulate..
- Service discovery– With efficiency as the final goal, the services are complemented by metadata through which the various available possibilities can be discovered and interpreted.
- Transparency of the location of services: refers to the ability of a service consumer to invoke a service, regardless of your network location. This principle is articulated around the accreditation of discovery property and the right of a consumer to have access to the service.. It can also be interpreted in terms of service virtualization, which would apply in a chaos where the consumer simply calls a logical service, while a SOA enables the execution of the infrastructure component, generally a service bus, which maps this logical service and proceeds to execute the call to the physical service.
Do you already know how to take advantage of service-oriented architecture to boost the effectiveness of communications between them?? Ask us any questions that may arise in connection with the SOA project you have underway and we will help you make the most of your resources.
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