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http://www.oracle.com/technology/oramag/oracle/06-jan/o16field.html
The Business Case for SOA
By
New technology
can bring direct, measurable benefits to your company.
As president of the Independent Oracle Users Group (IOUG) since
June 2005 and a member of the Oracle community for 14 years, I've met hundreds
of Oracle users and seen many Oracle implementations. In this new column, I'll
illustrate some insights into Oracle technology and the IT marketplace from my
own experiences.
Benefits
of SOA
Much has been said about service-oriented architecture (SOA) and
its business benefits. SOA abstracts and exposes business functions as services
that connect multiple business applications in homogeneous or heterogeneous
environments. This description isn't news. But what are the business benefits
of SOA that make this architecture great?
Let's look at an example of a retail company that I helped use SOA
in a cross-application process. The situation was typical: A customer wanted to
purchase a collectible from the retailer's Web site. The use of SOA simplified
processing, saved the costs of developing applications, and allowed the
retailer to interact advantageously with partners.
In the upgraded system, SOA played a role even before the
purchaser selected the item. A central database that I designed held
information about the retailer's products, including inventory, price,
description, and pictures. A service pours this information into the retailer's
Web pages for visitors to peruse before making their selections.
After the purchaser clicks Buy, a sequence of events begins.
First, the retailer verifies the purchaser as a known customer or member. The
retailer keeps user name, password, address, preferences, and payment details
in a customer database I helped design. In addition, the retailer maintains a
purchase history that makes product suggestions for returning customers.
After verifying the purchaser's identity, SOA plays a fundamental
part in confirming credit card information with any of several financial
clearinghouses. We tested this interaction and used the results to interface
with the retailer's internal database. The retailer uses SSL security to
encrypt the purchaser's credit card information and stores that information
behind a secure firewall. The transaction takes the form of an encrypted
XML-based request on the SOA framework, transmitting information to the
clearinghouse.
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Using this service saves the retailer from having to code its own
verification application. The SOA makes details about the clearinghouse's
process invisible—and irrelevant—to the retailer. As long as the
two use a well-defined interaction, the transaction will work, and the retailer
will receive an approval or denial of the proposed credit card purchase. When
the approved buyer finalizes the purchase, yet another transaction occurs with
the clearinghouse—the financial exchange. SOA also mediates this
transaction.
Fulfilling the order comes next. Whether the retailer does this or
uses a third-party supplier, the SOA is pivotal. Helping to improve the Web
site was one step I took to facilitate fulfillment. Information about the item
and the purchaser is extracted from the databases and defines the order to
fill. Another XML request, including the name and address of the purchaser, but
no unnecessary details, goes to the third-party shipping company, which
provides tracking information that the retailer may forward to the purchaser.
All of this depends on the retailer using services and the shipper interacting
with SOA.
SOA
Benefits
You've probably noticed a pattern here. Data is extracted from a
database, translated into a convenient and well-defined format such as XML, and
sent to a service. That service returns another XML message, which is
translated and parsed into data that is stored in a database. At each step, the
SOA acts as a bridge among databases.
The SOA has many advantages for the retailer, which doesn't have
to create its own applications for credit card processing, order filling, or
shipping. Instead, the retailer can concentrate on selling collectibles and
leave those other processes to third-party partners that specialize in these
areas. SOA makes this partnering easier. All the transactions use standard
formats. The retailer also can choose other partners that may offer lower
prices or better service: All they need to do is direct their transactions to
the new providers. No change to the back-end processing is necessary.
This example illustrates why Oracle professionals need to
understand SOA. Companies do not spend resources to implement new technology
unless these outlays can demonstrate direct, measurable business benefits. SOA
provides a wide range of real business benefits to enterprises—and Oracle
provides a variety of ways to achieve these benefits.
