Finding The Intersection Of Soa And Cloud Computing

© 2006 The Linthicum Group. All Rights Reserved.

Reproduction without prior written permission is strictly prohibited.

Finding the Intersection of SOA and

Cloud Computing

David S. Linthicum

[email protected]

www.bluemountainlabs.com

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.bluemountainlabs.com/

© 2006 The Linthicum. Group. All Rights Reserved.


Cloud Computing makes SOA even

more Cost Effective

2

Cloud

ComputingSOA Cha-Ching!



Understanding the Relationships

3

SOA

Cloud

Computing

Enterprise

Architecture



SOA and Cloud Computing

• One can consider cloud

computing the extension of

SOA out to cloud-delivered

resources, such as storage-

as-a-service, data-as-a-

service, platform-as-a-service

-- you get the idea.

• The trick is to determine which

services, information, and

processes are good

candidates to reside in the

clouds, as well as which cloud

services should be abstracted

within the existing or emerging

SOA.

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SOA and Cloud Computing Need

Each Other

• While you can certainly

leverage a cloud without

practicing SOA, the real value

of cloud computing is the ability

to identify services, data, and

processes that can exist

outside of the firewall, in SEDC

(somebody else's datacenter).

• Those that attempt to toss

things to clouds without some

architectural forethought will

find that cloud computing won't

provide the value. 5



Start with the Architecture

Understand:

• Business drivers

• Information under management

• Existing services under management

• Core business processes

•6



The Basic Concept

• One can consider cloud computing the

extension of SOA out to cloud-delivered

resources, such as storage-as-a-service, data-

as-a-service, platform-as-a-service -- you get

the idea.

• The trick is to determine which services,

information, and processes are good

candidates to reside in the clouds, as well as

which cloud services should be abstracted

within the existing or emerging SOA.

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The Basic Idea

New

Accounts

Finance/

Operations

Commission

Calculation

Sales

Data

Cleaning

Sales Order

Update

SOA

http://www.salesforce.com/us/



9

Moving to “Outside In”

• Today, more services exist outside the enterprise for use within the enterprise.

• Leveraging outside services provides enterprises with:

– More agility with their ability to add, change, and delete services as needed

– Reuse of services they did not need to create or maintain

– Better value chain integration incorporating both customers and suppliers

– Exposing business services outside of the enterprise “Inside out”



Leveraging OPW (Other People’s Work)

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SOA and Cloud Computing:

Mashing Up

• Although enterprise mashups are

new, their solution patterns are

already emerging. Broadly

speaking, there are really two

types of mashups: visual and

nonvisual.– The Google Maps variety typifies visual

mashups. The formula is simple: Take

two different resources and create

something that is more useful than the

sum of its parts. It’s easy to see the

value because it’s right there on the

screen.

– Nonvisual mashups combine two or

more services to create an integration

point that serves a business process.

They may operate behind the scenes

and never appear on screen, at least not

directly, but they are mashups

nonetheless.

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Infrastructure-as-a-Service

Security-as-a-Service

Storage-as-a-Service

Integration-as-a-Service Database-as-a-Service

Information-as-a-Service

Process-as-a-Service

Organizing the CloudsPlatform-as-a-Service

Application-as-a-Service

Management/Governance-as-a-Service

Testing-as-a-Service



IT is Skeptical

• Enterprise IT is

understandably skittish

about cloud computing.

• However, many of the

cloud computing

resources out there will

actually provide better

service than on-

premise.

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However, Not So Fast

• Not all computing

resources should

exist in the clouds.

• Cloud computing is

not always cost

effective.

• Do your homework

before making the

move.

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This will Take Some Work

• In order to make this a reality, we

must learn to how to bridge the

gaps between our enterprise

systems and SOAs, and cloud

providers.

• Special consideration must be

given to connectivity,

interoperability, security, and

shared processes.

• Most out there looking at this new

opportunity don’t have a clue as

to how to make the new and old

work and play well together.



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Understanding the Problem

• Cloud providers must integrate with existing enterprise systems to become more valuable.

• However, existing internal integration needs to exist to ensure:– Production and consumption of structured information

– Semantic mediation

– Security mediation

– Service enablement

– Firewall management

– Transactional integrity

– Unstructured data

– Holistic management of the complete integration chain



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Getting Ready

• So, how do you prepare yourself? I have a few suggestions:– First, accept the notion that it's okay to leverage services

that are hosted on the Internet as part of your SOA. Normal security management needs to apply, of course.

– Second, create a strategy for the consumption and management of cloud services, including how you'll deal with semantic management, security, transactions, etc.

– Finally, create a proof of concept now. This does a few things including getting you through the initial learning process and providing proof points as to the feasibility of leveraging cloud computing resources.



Stepping to the Clouds

1. Access the business.

2. Access the culture.

3. Access the value.

4. Understand your data.

5. Understand your services.

6. Understand your processes.

7. Understand the cloud

resources.

8. Identify candidate data.

9. Identify candidate services.

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10. Identify candidate processes.

11.Create a governance strategy.

12.Create a security strategy.

13.Bind candidate services to data

and processes.

14.Relocate services, processes, and

information.

15. Implement security.

16. Implement governance.

17. Implement operations.



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Remember, there are a few technical

issues that you must address…

• Semantic and metadata management, or, the management of the different information representations amount the external services and internal systems.

• Transformation and routing, or, accounting for those data differences during run time.

• Governance across all systems, meaning, not giving up the notion of security and control when extending your SOA to the global SOA.

• Discovery and service management, meaning, how to find and leverage services inside or outside of your enterprise, and how to keep track of those services through their maturation.

• Information consumption, processing, and delivery, or, how to effectively move information to and from all interested systems.

• Connectivity and adapter management, or, how to externalize and internalize information and services from very old and proprietary systems.

• Process orchestration and service, and process abstraction, or, the ability to abstract the services and information flows into bound processes, thus creating a solution



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Other Thoughts

• At the end of the day, external cloud service should function like any other enterprise application or infrastructure resource, both housing and sharing critical business information as well as services.

• You have access to thousands of services with a single cloud provider, as well as information, schemas, etc., and the same patterns found in other on-demand application providers as well.

• You subscribe to these resources rather than purchase them, and they should appear native.



Good SOA Leads to Good Clouds

• Good SOA leads to a

good cloud computing

strategy.

• A good cloud computing

strategy leads to reduced

costs, and enhanced

agility.

• Also, more excitement

around enterprise

computing than we've

seen in a while.

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Final Thoughts

• Businesses will have to change to remain competitive.

• There are many examples of cloud success today, albeit it's still early in the cycle.



Thanks!

[email protected]

• Blogs:

– InfoWorld “Real World SOA”

– Intelligent Enterprise

– eBizq.net

• Weekly Podcasts

– InfoWorld SOA Report

– Cloud Computing Podcast

• Columns– SOA Journal

– Cloud Computing Journal

– eBizq.net

– Align Journal

• Follow me on Twitter (DavidLinthicum)

mailto:[email protected]

http://weblog.infoworld.com/realworldsoa/archives/podcast/



WWW.BLUEMOUNTAINLABS.COM

QUESTIONS?

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Finding The Intersection Of Soa And Cloud Computing

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Transcript of Finding The Intersection Of Soa And Cloud Computing