Implementing SOA: Total Architecture in Practice

Chapter 22. Data Consistency: Maintaining One Version of the Truth

When you look at data elements in the business processes, you want to see the same values regardless of where you look. If you look up the shipping address in the warehouse management system, you want to see the same shipping address that is in the order entry system, even if the customer just went online to the order entry system and changed it. Discrepancies in values are, in fact, errors—errors that can cause mistakes in business processes.

Since data inconsistencies can cause errors in business processes, you would naturally want to avoid such inconsistencies. But actually the siloed systems that typically populate the enterprise IT landscape were never designed to coordinate ...