Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
that drive these functions, along with the stakeholders — vendors,
suppliers and service providers — are also discussed.
2.
This defines the interfaces between the various func-
tional and business processes discussed above. The software inven-
tory in the organization is also maintained under this heading.
Application.
3.
This categorizes the data and information resources
of the organization. It includes the raw data, metadata, documents,
databases, images, and all similar artifacts.
Information.
4.
This covers the physical elements in the organization
— hardware, servers, networking, phone systems, and operating
systems (legacy artifacts).
Technology.
The
process
of developing the enterprise architecture is considered to
be, perhaps,
important to the organization — it helps improve overall
decision making, especially for growing organizations, in volatile markets.
more
Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA)
Service-oriented architecture (SOA) is a concept that postulates how
layered systems should be built using a set of services. A service is typically
associated with some unit of work, or a defined set of functionality. In
SOA, it is relegated that these services will be performed on behalf of
another entity (e.g., another program). The main advantages of an SOA-
based system include:
Separation of tasks
: the functionality offered by a computing entity
(provider) is encapsulated in the form of a service.
Loosely coupled
: where there are no dependencies between the
service seeker and the service provider, and all interactions are
stateless (each interaction is independent of any other interaction).
Formally defined interfaces
: where the services interoperate, based
on a well-defined set of rules (protocol) that are independent of
any implementation (J2EE, .Net, etc.).
An implementation of SOA, which is often found is in Web services;
WSDL, SOAP, UDDI, etc. are acronyms commonly used in this context.
Credit card approvals while shopping online, airline reservations, and
tracking shipments on the Internet are all examples of Web services in
action, based on an SOA framework.
