In practice the SOA is used to improve or enhance operations across different platforms. In line with this there is the option to use services to complete various tasks. This function is commonly referred to as the (ESB). The main role of the ESB is to enhance interoperability due to the fact that it integrates different platforms and programming languages (Josuttis 48). In this case there is a company interested in scheduling automatic bonus payments based on the monthly sales volume.
For the construction of services that can increase or improve interoperability the company can make use of some popular software products such as BEA and Cape Clear (Infoworld 24). These approaches have been developed to ease the creation of services in a SOA. The Sierra Strategy developed by BEA is useful in that they are targeted at reducing the cost and complexity of service creation. Cape clear on the other hand has produced an SOA editor aimed at easing the development of services.
For the purpose of this company Cape clear appeared to provide an appropriate solution to the task the company intends to include in its list of services. The company intends to automate the process of scheduling bonus payments. Cape clear was found to be useful in that this product contains wizards that can automate routine tasks (Infoworld 24).
The other service that the company would like to include is a reporting system that allows for the use of data from all four systems at the same time. For this purpose the use of XBRL (eXtensible Business Reporting Language) may be an apt solution. A lot of XBRL software available today is standalone where this means you must use several applications to complete a task as opposed to just one application (Hoffman, Watson and Watanabe 2009). Through the use of XBRL the enterprise will be able to improve its reporting capability and interoperability to allow all four systems to deliver reports without any significant changes to the system (Hoffman, Watson and Watanabe 2009).
Due to an increase in pressure to integrate among enterprises using disparate systems several companies have begun to develop various ESB products. In this section of the report the discussion will introduce and recommend two such solutions. One such solution is known as Sonic ESB 5.0 which is based on standards such as XML and SOAP (Infoworld 34). Traditional software was connected via point to point links whereas ESB’s propose connections based on various SOA standards. This position allows or enhances interoperability between distributed and different platforms (Infoworld 34). This is because it allows for systems that provide essential operations to be incrementally added to the ESB.
Another good ESB product is the system known as WASP produced by Systinet (Infoworld 38). This is a development framework that revolves around web services. The product is favorable because despite it being a commercial product it is also available to no charge thus providing small enterprises an opportunity to access the product (Nash 161). The system is developed for use within the Sun Forte integrated development environment. The WASP software allows the creation of a web service using three components; its interface, which is embodied by the WSDL file for the service, the actual implementation of the service (e.g. the logic behind the application) and deployment information; specifying the deployment portion of the WSDL description of the service (Nash 161). A finished application is made up of a group of web services that make up a complete deployment package. Systinet provides a series of products that make up the WASP package. These include WASP developer, WASP server, WASP UDDI and WASP security (Nash 161). The WASP software is recommended because web services are fast becoming a very crucial component of a distributed system. It is for this reason that any software such as WASP which can quickly and reliably produce services is considered essential for the future.
Works Cited
Hoffman, Charles, Liv Watson and Eiichi Watanabe. XBRL for Dummies. Printed in the USA: For Dummies, 2009. Print.
Infoworld. BEA, Cape Clear Support SOA’s. Infoworld, 2005. Vol. 26, No. 23. 1-76.
Infoworld. BEA, The rise of the integration architect. Infoworld, 2003. Vol. 25, No. 13. 1-68.
Josuttis, Nicolai, M. SOA in Practice: The art of distributed system design. Sebastopol: O’Reilly Media Inc, 2007. Print.
Nash, John. Java Frameworks and Components: Accelerate your Web Application Development. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Print.