Service-oriented Architecture (SOA).

Running Head : SERVICE ORIENTED ARCHITECTURE

Service Oriented Architecture

[The Writer 's Name]

[The Name of the Institution]

Service Oriented Architecture

A service-oriented architecture (SOA ) is a specific type of distributed system framework which maintains agents that act as software services ' performing well-defined operations . We define a SOA as a loosely coupled architecture with a set of abstractions relating to components granular enough for consumption by clients and accessible over the network with well-defined policies as dictated by the components

Thus , a service acts (in some manner ) as a

user-facing software component of an application or resource . This paradigm of functionality enables the users of that application (or resource pool ) to be concerned only with the operational of the service . In addition , SOA stresses that all services have a network-addressable interface and communicate via standard protocols and data formats called messages

As with any new concept , each enterprise must localize the concept for its own needs . One size does not fit all . But the beauty of both an SOA and a masbup is that . With the right foundation , they can be configured to meet a host of any set of business requirements - and can be reshuffled quickly when those requirements change

The emergence of the SOA concept helps grid resources to advertise their capabilities through standard interfaces defined as part of their service extensions . This enables grid users to integrate the resources through open-standards interfaces . In addition , the operational functions of each layer in the grid architecture can be abstracted to enable easier integration across all the layers . This service abstraction of each layer of the grid architecture is shown in Figure 1

Figure 1

Governance and reuse do help deliver successful results for SOA efforts This particularly holds true for the cost-saving aspect of SOA , such as cutting application development and deployment times . An especially important element is the adoption of design-time governance . As the report observes "design-time governance is where programmers can be 'encouraged ' to re-use existing services , saving the initial coding time and long-term maintenance costs of writing new but duplicative program code " The best-in-class companies got to where they are because they have the wherewithal and know-how to establish measurable performance metrics , and how to apply them directly to the business . Thus , they have more visibility to see more precisely how SOA methodologies as well as other technology initiatives may be saving money in certain areas , or enhancing aspects of the business , such as sales growth (Service-Oriented Architecture . Article accessed on 02-05-2007 from http /blogs .zdnet .com /service-oriented

It is now generally accepted that virtual environment (VE ) technology has immense commercial and educational potential , but so far the development of truly focused markets for VE applications is at an early stage . This describes some of the factors at this early stage that will influence the ultimate growth of the VE market . In particular , the stresses that high-selling costs can constrain the growth of the market , to the near-term detriment of the predominantly small-to-medium-size enterprise...