Mindreef

March 28, 2008

The adoption of Service Oriented Architecture continues apace, with the expectation that application development and integration will improve. For those companies that are now in SOA, the realization has come that while their aspirations can be achieved, there is a price to pay. Of course, with the right tools and processes, these problems can be addressed, but it is an arduous learning process.

One of the consequences of Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) is that the traditional approach to application development, where applications have a recognizable beginning and end and there is control over the source code, is shunned. Instead, a new paradigm is introduced, composed of composite applications created from diverse services and components where source code is not always accessible. There are two areas in Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) where this has a major impact: testing and change management.

Testing SOA applications is problematical for a number of reasons. It is difficult for a company to know if a web service will deliver on its promises, and, even if it does, whether it will maintain the company's standards of robustness and security while complying with its policies. As web service standards evolve, companies need to preempt them by implementing in-house certification processes in order to ensure trust. Allowing service/component consumers to leave feedback for other consumers as well as the provider/creator is a sound strategy. If a service which is part of a long chain goes out of commission, companies have the option of restricting chaining depth until there is a signaling mechanism in place which can highlight changes that may compromise the ultimate composite application. ...

Many of the latest generation APM tools have the capability to trace performance along chains of web services (see the April 2008 edition of Butler Group Review for an up-to-date market roundup of the larger players). There are also specialist vendors in SOA testing such as Mindreef... [with] SOAPscope Tester... geared towards multi-tier, SOA applications, setting up continuous testing and validation to ensure the high reliability and quality of composite applications.

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