Service-Oriented Architecture: Best Practices for Successful Adoption

Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) has been touted as a solution to meet the challenge of rapid change in today's commercial, government, and military software environments. According to a 2007 Gartner Group report, 50% of new mission-critical operational applications and business processes were designed in 2007 around SOA, and that number will be more than 80% by 2010. While the technologies to implement SOA will most probably change over time, one concept will remain: SOA promises a way to design, deploy and manage systems that enables cost-efficiency, agility, adaptability, and the leveraging of legacy investments. However, before adopting SOA as a development and operational paradigm, an organization needs to gain a realistic understanding of its potentials and pitfalls.

Service-Oriented Architecture: Best Practices for Successful Adoption is an introductory course that begins with a "50,000-foot" view of SOA implications for an organization and introduces the three basic components of service-oriented systems: services, service consumers, and infrastructure. It then outlines the basic operations of service discovery, composition, and invocation and introduces common technologies in a "5,000-foot" view. Web Services is presented in detail as one approach for implementing SOA, with a description of the basic supporting technologies for WS* Web Services-Web Service Description Language (WSDL) Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP), and potentially Universal Description, Discovery and Integration (UDDI)-as well as the implementation of Web Services using REST (Representational State Transfer).

In the "1,000-foot" view, it addresses SOA development challenges from three perspectives: the service developer, the application developer, and the infrastructure developer. As SOA concepts are revealed, the potentials of cost-efficiency, agility, adaptability, and leverage of legacy investments will become clear. Common misconceptions about SOA are presented, such as the belief that SOA can be implemented "out of the box".

For successful SOA adoption, it is crucial to pay attention to four pillars that are necessary for SOA success. These pillars do not guarantee successful implementation of service-oriented systems, but most success stories show that if they are not acknowledged and addressed, the chances of success are limited. The pillars presented in the course are

1. Strategic approach, focusing on alignment with business goals
2. SOA governance
3. Realistic context-based technology evaluations
4. Change of mindset-a different development and implementation approach

Exercises are used throughout the course to encourage discussion among attendees and to increase the understanding of the concepts presented.

Who should attend?

  • Technical managers, managers, and software engineers who are looking for a solid overview of what SOA adoption really involves
  • Individuals tasked with development and deployment of service-oriented systems or with migration of legacy systems to SOA environments
  • Individuals who make decisions about SOA strategy and implementation

What will you learn?

Participants will gain an understanding of the

  • basic concepts related to SOA and service-oriented systems
  • common misconceptions about SOA
  • potentials and pitfalls of SOA adoption
  • importance of SOA strategy, SOA governance, contextual technology evaluation and recognition of a change of mindset as keys to successful SOA adoption

Course Details at a Glance

2009 Course Fees [USD]

U.S. Industry:

$700

U.S. Government/Academic:

$550

International:

$1050

Next Learning Opportunity

January 27 , 2010 (SEI Pittsburgh, PA)

This course may be offered by special arrangement at customer sites.



 

 

 

For More Information

 

E-mail: course-info@sei.cmu.edu
Phone: 412-268-7622

 

 


2010 Dates
January 27 , 2010 (SEI Pittsburgh, PA)
April 13 , 2010 (SEI Pittsburgh, PA)
July 28 , 2010 (SEI Pittsburgh, PA)
October 27 , 2010 (SEI Pittsburgh, PA)


This course may be offered by special arrangement at customer sites.

Schedule

This one day course meets at the following times:
8:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m. (US Locations)
9:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m. (Non-US Locations)

Introduction to SOA
  • The 50,000-Foot View
    • Basic Concepts
    • Web Services
  • The 5,000-Foot View
    • Basic Operations
    • Web Services
  • The 1,000-Foot View: Challenges for the Service Developer, the Service Consumer and the Infrastructure Provider
Pillars of SOA Adoption
  • Strategic Alignment
  • SOA Governance
  • Technology Evaluation
  • Change of Mindset
There are no prerequisites for this course.
Copies of the course presentation slides will be provided to the students.
Exercise solutions will also be distributed at the conclusion of the class.