How SOA is evolving in the real world? Krishna Prasad and Prasad A. Chodavarapu GMs (Technology), HCL EAI Services (Formerly Aalayance )

Goal: Understand how SOA is evolving Today’s Alphabet Soup: –SOA, xSOA, ESA, ESB, EDA, EPCIS, BAM, BPEL Use xSOA 3-layer model to understand why and how each of these technologies is evolving the way it is Q & A

This talk will not cover basics of Web Services. E.g., SOAP, WSDL and UDDI are not described. We briefly revisit SOA as the base layer in xSOA We provide examples from our experience in Supply chain management (Business Integration) and Security domains Scope of this talk

Extended Service Oriented Architecture (xSOA )

xSOA 3-layer model is to SOA what OSI 7-layer model is to networking An attempt at abstracting the way SOA needs to evolve What is xSOA?

xSOA 3 Layer stack Source: Michael P. Papazoglou

xSOA Layer 1: Service Oriented Architecture (SOA)

Basic unit of SOA Logic offered in a context-independent way –Context-independence allows composition of services into higher level services A Service should be: –Self-describing: E.g., By way of Web Service Definition Language (WSDL) –Discoverable: E.g., By way of Universal Discovery and Description interface (UDDI). –Technology-agnostic: Accessible from every platform, e.g., via SOAP What is a Service?

SOA re-organizes software applications and infrastructure with services as fundamental elements Examples of SOA evolution in real world: –EPCIS (RFID) –ESA (SAP) What is SOA?

Example in Layer-1: EPCIS (RFID)

Electronic Product Code (EPC): –Next generation barcode –Identifies each object, not just products –Includes company code, product id and serial number Radio Frequency Identifier (RFID): –Standard for RF based tags storing EPC. –EPC can be read from the tag using a RFID Reader. –RFID tags may include sensors E.g., Temperature sensor EPC Information System (EPCIS): –Distributed services to track object lifecycle information. –Emerging around Web Services for object tracking in the supply-chain space. –Evolving at EPCGlobalInc.org What is EPCIS?

Source: Marc Linster EPCIS Use Case

EPCIS/RFID Solution Architecture Source: Connecterra R R R R RFID Middle -ware (ALE) Ship & Receive Warehouse Mgmt Factory Efficiency EPC Info Services (EPCIS) Exchange with trading partners Management/Monitoring Infrastructure-centric Object Name Service (ONS) R R Ship & Receive R R Warehouse Mgmt Exchange with trading partner’s corresponding app Application-centric

EPCIS services are discoverable via ONS and Discovery services EPCIS uses WSDL to be self describing Each EPCIS system can be in any platform and they all can collaborate with each other. Interoperability is the key for EPCIS to work. Why EPCIS is an example of xSOA Layer 1?

Another Example in Layer-1: ESA (SAP)

What is ESA? Enterprise Service Architecture (ESA): SAP’s initiative to standardize how enterprise applications provide Web Services interfaces. An Enterprise Service is a Web Service whose interfaces fit into a “pattern” with Create, Retrieve, Update, Delete, Query and Action operations named and defined according to a convention. Tools can take advantage of the conventions to discover and integrate compliant enterprise services. All SAP products to provide ESA compliant Web Services interfaces by 2007 Microsoft, IBM, Cisco, EMC, Intel and Macromedia have licensed ESA from SAP.

ESA: Architecture Source: SAP

ESA is standardizing the service interfaces for business objects in the enterprise A convention on top of basic SOA standards to let tools discover and use services easily ESA:SOA :: EJB:J2EE How ESA fits in xSOA Layer 1?

xSOA Layer 2: Service Composition

Composition of web services –For aggregation –For generating higher level services that provide: Filtering Summarizing Correlating Examples: BPEL (Aggregation), EDA/BAM (Higher level services) What is xSOA Layer 2?

Example in Layer-2: BPEL

What is BPEL? Business process modeling has always been ad- hoc in vendor offerings. E.g., most tools cannot compensate when failures occur in long running transactions BPEL brings the benefits of standardization. –Rich process model including parallel execution (flow), event handling, alarms, fault handlers and compensation handlers. –Compensatory mechanisms for handling failures in long running transactions –Have WSDL? BPEL can use it. Web Services of course! Legacy apps connected by WSIF via JCA/JDBC. –Portability What it doesn’t do, –No user interaction. Semi automated process cannot be modeled. –No in-built support for transformation

BPEL Use Case Source: Oracle

BPEL is all about service composition A BPEL process is also a Service! That is, the composite service can in turn be composed! Service aggregators thus become service providers by publishing the service descriptions of the composite service they create. How BPEL fits in xSOA Layer 2?

Example in Layer-2: BAM/EDA

Business Activity Monitoring (BAM) relies on Event Driven Architecture (EDA) to provide business leaders with dashboards that display: –The cumulative status as of now –Business alerts that need to be acted on For example, lets say your inventory level drops down, business leaders need to know it immediately EDA is being implemented in the network layer to capture all application level events as they happen EDA uses Web Services to communicate events to BAM BAM consolidates application events into business information What are BAM and EDA?

BAM systems Work house Data Stores BI Main Frames Legacy Systems Analytical Systems Excel Word. ERP. CRM. SUPPLY CHAIN Operational Systems Desktop DataRisk Indicators Performance Indicators Business Dashboards Transactional External BAM Architecture

BAM provides higher level business information by filtering, summarizing and correlating event information obtained from EDA How BAM and EDA fit in xSOA Layer 2?

xSOA Layer 3: Management

Layer 3 addresses the challenges of management of Web Services Two distinct management services: –Operations Starting, Stopping, Configuring, … –Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) Example of Operations Mgmt.: Web Services Management Framework (WSMF) – Not covered here What is xSOA Layer 3?

Example in Layer-3: ESB

Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) helps manage large number of services by providing horizontal value-adds such as: –Security –Transactions –Reliability –Service Virtualization Load Balancing Message Distribution (Fan out and in) What is ESB?

ESB works by using the extension mechanisms built into SOAP: 1.Message syntax and semantics can be extended with headers 2.Messages can be intercepted and worked on by intermediaries Headers are not just syntax as in SMTP Headers. Semantics of who may/must process headers allows standardization of extensions. E.g., WS-Security How does the message get to Intermediaries? –Implicit routing possible with SOAP-aware network devices –Explicit routing possible with WS-Addressing. Assumes next- hop routing like in IP networks How does ESB Work?

ESB: Architecture Source: Michael P. Papazoglou

ESB Use case: Centralized Security

Services can focus on their business logic and leave issues like reliability, transactions and security to be managed by ESB By factoring out all horizontal concerns into the bus, ESB enables easy development and management of a large number of services How ESB fits in xSOA Layer 3?

Conclusion

We have seen examples of SOA evolution in real world using xSOA 3-layer stack as our guide –EPCIS brings dynamic capabilities to supply chain management and business integration –ESA standardizes Web Services interfaces to legacy applications –BPEL aggregates Web Services into a business process –BAM composes application events to higher level business information –ESB focuses on quality of service