Database Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 6. Architect
and
Design
Services Using BPEL
In an enterprise, it is rare for us to get an opportunity to design and build enterprise
systems from scratch. As enterprise architects, we must deal with the existing applic-
ation services portfolio to identify commonly used services, and utilize them to im-
plement an enterprise SOA. The architectural design has shifted from creating stan-
dalone enterprise systems from scratch to integrating existing systems due to the
huge benefits in cost and time to deliver such systems. The standalone system can-
not meet the business requirements in an enterprise setup anymore to benefit from
economies of scale and scope.
There are several use cases for Business-to-Business (B2B) integration and applic-
ation to application integration. Usually, many enterprises have application platforms
developed using different technologies such as .NET, Visual Basic, Java, PHP, Main-
frame, and Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) products. To achieve integration goals,
always adopt the service orientation and orchestration approach instead of creating
monolithic standalone applications. BPEL allows you to orchestrate, that is, manage
and coordinate different web services to achieve specific business requirements. In
this chapter, we will learn the industry-leading options to architect enterprise services
using BPEL.
Services
architecture
and
design
guidelines
The following are the key guidelines for services architecture and design:
• Reuse of existing applications.
• Loose coupling of the interaction between applications.
• Use asynchronous instead of synchronous interaction.
• Use common data formats for exchanging information between applica-
tions.
• All available services should be discoverable either manually or automat-
ically.
