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Service-Oriented Architecture Project Overview May 3, 2006 The Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) Project was commissioned by the Technology Governance Board (TGB) to gain an understanding and necessary expertise of the SOA approach. It requires the development, implementation, training, planning and recommendation of best practices to allow participating agencies to evaluate the benefits and costs associated with an SOA with Web Services (SOA/WS) architecture. The training component will provide agency representatives with the knowledge to continue the design and implementation of further SOA/WS initiatives. It will also provide the basis for standards surrounding the concept of the SOA/WS and will be used by the TGB as it reviews future IT-related RFPs submitted for approval. What is a service-oriented architecture? It is a fairly new technology concept that establishes a new approach for organizations to leverage technology in a flexible, agile manner. In SOA, the application's business logic is modularized and exposed as services for other applications to use. The key is that these services are “loosely coupled” and the service interface is independent of what and how it is implemented. Why is the TGB pursuing an SOA at this time? SOA has gained significant momentum in the last few years and will allow the State of Iowa to realize a number of potential benefits. Other organizations (public and private sector) have begun to move in this direction and if we do not evaluate SOA, we will eventually have to react to demands to collaborate with organizations that have transitioned. The Federal Government is adopting SOA/WS architectures as a means to exchange data fairly rapidly. SOA presents a paradigm change to IT organizations, which can only be addressed through a planned and focused transition approach. A very important guiding principle of SOA is that the architecture can evolve based on existing system investments, rather than requiring a full-scale system rewrite. What does this mean to my department? An important component from the SOA project will be the basis for standards surrounding the concept of the SOA/WS. The standards will be used by the TGB as it reviews future IT-related RFPs submitted for approval. Departments must follow these SOA-related standards for exchanging information via web applications. 1
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Will departments have to make any immediate investments? No, one of the chief benefits of the SOA being developed is that each department will retain its own existing hardware and software. It’s the means of exchanging the information that is guided by the SOA under development. Ultimately departments will have to invest in application software implementations that expose their data and services. What will change once the consultants’ work on SOA is completed? The consultants will deliver a plan that will help the state convert other data sharing applications to the method used by the SOA/WS. As mentioned above, departments will need to follow the standards for exchanging data via the web for the TGB to approve RFPs. Iowa Executive Branch SOA (EBSOA) Workshops To succeed with SOA, enterprises must address all three issues: SOA infrastructure, Design, and Culture. This approach specifically focuses on these three areas, through an initial series of workshops that define the current environment and future objectives to be achieved through the adoption of an SOA strategy. These workshops are: Discovery Workshops – Week of May 1 Network/Systems/Security: Focuses on understanding current network infrastructures and policies, systems infrastructure and policies, and security infrastructures and policies General Applications: Focuses on understanding primary applications and associated business services which may participate in the SOA roadmap Candidate Applications: Focuses on an understanding of Candidate Applications that will be leveraged for the Proof of Concept.
ViEW™ Workshops – Start the Week of May 15 Vision Initial Readiness Governance Engagement Roles and Responsibilities Adoption Roadmap
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