Service Oriented Architecture

A. The authors in the article talk about SOA (pages 16 to 18). Exactly what is SOA?

ANS: Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) is an architectural style based on loosely coupled interacting software components that provide services. A service is a piece of functionality made available by a service provider in order to deliver end results for a service consumer. SOA as an architectural style where systems consist of service users and service providers. An architectural style defines a vocabulary of component and connector types, and constraints on how they can be combined. For SOA, the basic component types are service user and service provider.

B. Why SOA is important to the ERP vendors?

ANS: Service-oriented architecture (SOA) is a very popular architecture paradigm for designing and developing distributed systems. SOA solutions have been created to satisfy business goals that include easy and flexible integration with legacy systems, streamlined business processes, reduced costs, innovative service to customers, and agile adaptation and reaction to opportunities and competitive threats. Simply, SOA allows both platforms -- the Execution Platform and ERP -- to live side by side while reducing the complexity of IT projects. IT staffers can handle user requests related to business process changes via a configuration change in the Execution Platform, rather than devising a complex ERP coding fix. This results in faster completion of the objective in a less-risky project. SOA enables this because each software platform exposes its capabilities as services and those can be knitted together in standard ways. With an SOA in place, however, the notification could be made in one application, such as the Execution Platform and it would then propagate throughout the system based on business rules. SOA effectively allows business processes to extend through the systems of your business partners. This method saves time, saves labor, improves accuracy and ultimately allows...