My boss’s boss asked if our architecture team could put together a list of what technologies and concepts typically comprise a service oriented architecture, so I compiled a collection of items and organized them by category. I then evaluated whether we had such a technology in house, and if so, did we actively use it. While you don’t care about those latter criteria, I thought I’d share (and ask your opinion of) my technology list.
Is this fairly complete? Is anything missing or mischaracterized?
| Category | Technology | Description | Toolset Examples |
| Standards | XML | Markup language for defining the encoding of structured data sets | Application platforms, database platforms, COTS packages |
| SOAP | Protocol specification for exchanging XML data over networks | Application platforms, COTS packages | |
| WSDL | XML language for describing web service contracts | Application platforms, COTS packages that expose WSDL, IDE tools such as XmlSpy for hand-crafting WSDL documents | |
| WS* | Set of web service standards of varying maturity that address message routing, security, attachment encoding, transactions and more. | COTS packages such as SAP, application platforms such as Microsoft WCF | |
| RESTful Services | Architectural style with a focus on resource orientation and interacting with the state of that resource through traditional HTTP verbs | .NET Framework 3.5+ | |
| Design | Service Modeler | Graphical tools for modeling SOA solutions | WebSphere Business Modeler, Mashup Tools |
| Data | Enterprise Entity Definitions | Computable representations of shared entities that may span multiple source systems | XSD, DDL |
| Reference Data Architecture | Three components made up of: (a) Operation Data Stores for logical entity definitions that act as “real time data warehouse” consisting of both real-time and batch updated data (b) Data marts for data subset analysis, and (c ) Data Warehouse for enterprise data storage and analysis | Oracle, Teradata, SQL Server | |
| Enterprise Information Integration (EII) | Virtual integration of disparate data sources | Composite | |
| Data Service Interface Generation | Application for generating interfaces (SOAP/batch) on existing data repositories | BizTalk Server 09, .NET Framework, Composite | |
| Enterprise Service Bus | Reliable message routing, transformation, queuing and delivery across disparate technologies | BizTalk Server 09, Tibco, Sonic | |
| Application Adapters | Connectivity to cross-platform systems via configuration and/or abstract interfaces | BizTalk Server 09, BizTalk Adapter Pack (Siebel, SAP, Oracle) | |
| ETL Application | Bulk data extraction, cleansing and migration between repositories. Frequently needed for consolidating data in the ODS | Informatica, SSIS | |
| Infrastructure | Application Platforms | Libraries for building SOA solutions | .NET Framework, Java EE |
| XML Gateway (Accelerators) | Focuses on SOA security and performance issues; typically a hardware appliance | WebSphere DataPower; Layer 7 | |
| Complex Event Processing Engine | Concept where distinct application or system events are correlated with the goal of discovering critical business information in real time | Microsoft StreamInsight, Tibco, Oracle CEP | |
| Single Sign On | Single set of authenticated credentials can be converted to system-specific credentials without user intervention | Siteminder | |
| Data Quality Services | Used to cleanse data and validate data quality | DataFlux | |
| Load Balancing | Hardware or software solution which sits in front of physical web servers and is responsible for distributing load | F5; SOA Service Manager | |
| Web Hosting Platforms | Environment to making web services available to consumers | Microsoft IIS, Oracle WebLogic | |
| Process Integration | BPM Server | Tooling that supports the modeling, simulation, execution, monitoring and optimizations of business processes | BizTalk Server 09; Lombardi |
| Business Rules Engine | Software system for maintaining business rules outside of compiled code | Microsoft BRE, Oracle | |
| Orchestration Services | Arrangement of services into an executable business process often designed through a graphical model | BizTalk Server 09 | |
| Business Activity Monitoring | Aggregation of activities, events and data that provides insight into organization and its business processes | BizTalk Server 09 | |
| Service Management | XML Service Management (XSM) | A platform independent system for administering, mediating and monitoring services | SOA Service Manager |
| Repository | Metadata repository for service definitions | SOA Service Manager | |
| UDDI-compliant Registry | Interface for runtime infrastructure to discover and bind to service endpoints | SOA Service Manager | |
| Runtime Policies | Attach attributes to service (or operation) that dictates how the service request is secured and processed | SOA Service Manager | |
| SLA Enforcement | Define acceptable web service availability with customizable rules consisting of alert code, metric to monitor and an interval | SOA Service Manager | |
| Access Control Contracts | Limit usage of service based on distinct number of allowable attempts, time of day window, or based on caller identity | SOA Service Manager | |
| Service Lifecycle Management | Stage, status, approvals, dependency tracking, audit trail | ||
| Security | Authorization | Verify user identity through LDAP integration, SAML tokens, x.509 certificates | Active Directory, Sun ONE LDAP, SOA Service Manager |
| Authentication | User/group/role at service or operation level | SOA Service Manager | |
| Identity Management | Central storage of user profile |
Any feedback is appreciated!
Technorati Tags: SOA
Richard Seroter's Architecture Musings 
Looks good! I was going to try to find a way to shamelessly plug an XML database, but there is no such opportunity 🙂
What about service virtualization? I just read this link last night from architecture journal:
Click to access Why%20Service%20Virtualization%20Matters%20.pdf
Digging into Figaro is still on my to do list 😉
Service virtualization is an interesting addition to consider.
you missed out on StreamInsight from SQL Server 2008 R2 in the CEP section
Good update, thanks Ryan.