Service Architectures
Today, it is almost impossible to remember what life was like with no computer, no mobile phone, and no Internet for exchanging emails and data. Organisations are doing business with each other by exchanging information via the Internet. People are filling in tax declarations online.
Micro computers are present these days in almost every electrically-powered device we buy and use; most are controlled with dedicated forms of software, which often enable the device to be adapted, configured or upgraded in some way.
New application areas and the expansion of numbers and types of devices increase the demand for more and new services. Society is progressively using (and dependent on) software and services running on computers, connecting mobile phones and other devices, and exchanging information on the Internet.
People like to shop and choose. Businesses and public administrations do this also. Today, they obtain the most cost effective or "optimal" solution to meet their needs, even if the solution does not match the needs perfectly. Tomorrow, they may no longer have to compromise in this way.
Just imagine from a consumer demand viewpoint, software that is provided as a service and computing power that is provided on request â?? and both of these provided via a communication network. Such an approach allows individuals and organisations to tap into, and to effectively harness the immense wealth of information, knowledge and analytical resources as and when they need them, paying only for what they use.
Changes in the demand side will influence changes in the supply side as well. As changing demands from society influence what software is developed and how, one can expect the markets and the structure of the IT service industry to evolve. Is it not true that patterns of competition and business are changing rapidly? The software industry itself is also rapidly restructuring. For example, new business models are emerging as an alternative to the buying and selling of "traditional packaged software".
Services and service-oriented architectures
This changing landscape of supply and demand is largely made possible by service-oriented architectures (SOA). Service-oriented computing decomposes the logic of an information system into smaller units of functionality, services. These services can be used as building blocks in the composition of larger systems.
The philosophy of SOA is to build software applications by connecting different building blocks of software, i.e. services, together in a loosely coupled way. The services are made available for use by publishing their interfaces. They can be provided in-house or by external parties. Service-oriented architectures hold the potential to be an effective solution to let software systems work together, even when they are developed by different organisations and spread across the world.
Addressing barriers to service-oriented computing
Obviously developing services is not a silver bullet. There are also some barriers to overcome before the SOA paradigm can realise its full potential. For example, the effort to develop services is too high at the moment, especially in an ever changing world.
Therefore, the ROMULUS project aims to increase productivity in Java Web development. Java is the most popular software language in Europe. Out of 4.5 million Java developers in the world, Europe has 1 million. ROMULUS will promote an open paradigm for development of web systems using Java technology. The project will provide an open source Java meta-framework for developing web applications. This will increase productivity of software development and reduce the time to develop services.
Another barrier is the integration of new functionality in existing IT environments. In organisations, you typically find a variety of infrastructure technologies, such as web services, P2P, Grid, and agents.
The SHAPE project will provide support for such heterogeneous architectural styles, including Web Services, agents, peer-to-peer, Grid and Components, under a unified service-oriented approach. This way, a new and better basis for meeting the business requirements of enterprise-wide systems will be formed. SHAPE will also apply the model-driven approach so that automation and abstraction of the technical issues are eased.
A third barrier is related to the interplay between software services, multi-media content and mobile devices. OMP will develop technologies and standards which facilitate dynamic composition of media-rich services for mobile devices and scale with device performance and network capability. OMP will deliver the essential tools, components, algorithms, methods and standards, necessary for Europe to develop the infrastructure necessary to enable new media-rich services. OMP combines component based methodology with efficient runtime engines able to execute the same binary on a large variety of platforms.
Users will be able to create and share their own mobile content, and interact in novel ways.
Mobile devices will be capable to intelligently operate with an array of networks and web services, dynamically composing content to deliver the most engaging experience possible. This new enriched network environment will facilitate creative business models for users and service providers alike.
Towards a Web of billions of services
Now picture a world where organisations and even citizens start developing services and making them available. SOA4All will provide the tools to deal with and to realize "a Web of billions of services", a world where billions of parties are exposing and consuming services.
Finally, services will not be used if consumers do not trust the service providers. Consumers need mechanisms to make agreements with providers, i.e. they need to establish Service Level Agreements (SLA) with providers. SLAs should allow the quality characteristics of services to be predicted and enforced at run-time. SLAs should define the exact conditions under which services are provided and consumed. They should be managed in a way that is transparent to both provider and consumer. The project http://cordis.europa.eu/cms/projects_en.html#sla-soi will deliver exactly the predictability and transparency both parties need.
This page is maintained by: Sabine Posdziech