Chapter 12. Service Oriented Integration
The purpose of this chapter is to introduce you to a number of techniques and APIs for performing systems integration. Building a new system from scratch is quite an undertaking, but it is not the norm today—most companies have an extensive legacy IT investment. Their systems were developed over time to meet a specific need. Whether the need was customer service, order fulfillment, or finance, there was something that drove the tremendous cost and heartache associated with IT development.
Eventually the systems that represent the IT infrastructure of a corporation grow to the point where sharing data and collapsing stovepipes not only starts to make sense; it's the only option.
This chapter differs from a number of the other chapters in this book because it is focused on specific solutions for software integration. Throughout this book you have learned a number of APIs, tools, and techniques for building software. This chapter, on the other hand, examines some specialized issues related to integrating and managing distributed applications.
Service Oriented Architecture
One of the biggest design challenges is making systems that will be stable as they adapt to change over time. Service Oriented Architectures (SOA) are shown to be more stable because they reuse core business functions. Figure 12-1 shows a graphic depiction of a service oriented architecture.
In an SOA the IT investment a company has made is leveraged by creating Service Layers around ...
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