Chapter 20
Putting Quality into SOA
In This Chapter
Risking a bad service
Remembering the good old days of software quality
Realizing that SOA quality is beyond testing
Understanding how the nature of SOA complicates testing
SOA is a great way to leverage the code you already wrote and use it to create nice modular software components or services. If your company has made progress with creating some sophisticated services, you may even be requiring that your business partners use these services. For example, say that you’re a global parts distributor and that you created a price-quoting service. Management decides that it can save everyone time and money by mandating that all business partners use it. Everyone seems happy until disaster strikes. The code contains a volume-pricing error, which creates problems for partners and their customers. It’s not just an internal software problem: The 130 partners who use the service are up in arms, too, wondering what you did to their business! Now you’re starting to get the idea about why software quality is so important in a service oriented world.
This is just one situation that can occur. If quality isn’t well executed, services are linked in an ineffective way. If no one thinks about testing the combined services and no one anticipates what could happen if the use of these services suddenly expanded, trouble can arise. Again, quality becomes the critical factor in success.
The very nature of SOA introduces challenges to the traditional ...
