Service Oriented Architectures (SOA) #

A cloud has some key characteristics: elasticity, self-service provisioning, standards based interfaces, and pay as you go. This type of functionality has to be engineered into the software. To accomplish this type of engineering requires that the foundation for the cloud be well designed and well architected. What about cloud architecture makes this approach possible? The fact is that the services and structure behind the cloud should be based on a modular architectural approach. A modular, component-based architecture enables flexibility and reuse. A Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) is what lies beneath this flexibility.

SOA is much more than a technological approach and methodology for creating IT systems. It’s also a business approach and methodology. Companies have used the principles of SOA to deepen the understanding between the business and IT and to help business adapt to change.

One of the key benefits of a service oriented approach is that software is designed to reflect best practices and business processes instead of making the business operate according to the rigid structure of a technical environment. A service-oriented architecture is essentially a collection of services. A service is, in essence, a function that is well defined, self-contained, and does not depend on the context or state of other services. Services most often reflect logical business activities. Some means of connecting services to each other is needed, so services communicate with each other, have an interface, and are message-

oriented. The communication between services may involve simple data passing or may require two or more services coordinating an activity. The services generally communicate using standard protocols, which allows for broad interoperability. SOA encompasses legacy systems and processes, so the effectiveness of existing investments is preserved. New services can be added or created without affecting existing services. Service-oriented architectures are not new. The first service-oriented architectures are usually considered to be the Distributed Component Object Model (DCOM) or Object Request Brokers (ORBs), which were based on the Common Object Requesting Broker Architecture (CORBA) specification. The introduction of SOA provides a platform for technology and business units to meet business requirements of the modern enterprise. With SOA, your organization can use existing application systems to a greater extent and may respond faster to change requests. These benefits are attributed to several critical elements of SOA:

Free-standing, independent components
Combined by loose coupling
Message (XML)-based instead of API-based
Physical location, etc., not important

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Combining Cloud and SOA