Thanks, Todd - interesting example. This reminds me of another example that I came across when doing a bit of consultancy for IntaMission a couple of years ago where they had a case study involving a decoupled client-server system based on Jini/JavaSpaces. The strength of the system was based on factors like automatic scalability (within hardware/comms infrastructural physical constraints), allowance for module failure etc. etc. The application involved farming out processor-intensive calculations on a flat, client-server model for a financial services company. Can one treat this as a flexible, adaptable candidate for a SOA approach and if so what is the most appropriate technology, J/JS or otherwise?
There are many other applications such as process-control, real-time military, telecoms etc. which are not seen as being in the mainstream commercial sphere. My curiosity is to find where these low-profile system requirements/apps could benefit from a flexible, loosely coupled SOA structure. If the server response is time-critical, tight-coupling is probably of the essence. Is there a SOA format which could be applicable or is the requirement for loose-coupling so fundamental to SOA as to exclude time-critical responses? You might rightly question the relevance of these ramblings: I would simply like to use them as examples of useful applications to test the true relevance of the criteria that we deem to be indispensable to the definition of a SOA. It is easy to forget that ICT systems are used for applications more interesting than mundane commercial transactions. If we look at other uses for tin/ironware it might help us to test useful architectural constraints and definitions. Let us not be constrained by others' imagination! Gervas --- In [email protected], Todd Biske <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > I don't know if this what you're looking for, but coming from the > engineering/infrastructure side of the house at my current employer, > one of the first possible cases I presented was the systems > management space. The standards bodies are in line with this idea > with both the MUWS component of WSDM and WS-Management. > > The scenario I always used was that of an application server farm > hosting a service. A routing device in front of the farm collects > response times. When the response time exceeds a threshold, the > device publishes an event. A operational management process is > kicked off in the BPM system in response to the event. The process > fires off one or more service invocations to provision a new > application server instance and deploy the service that is exceeding > the response time threshold. When the application server comes up > and the service is deployed, the application server fires an event. > The orchestrated management process is in a state listening for the > event. After it receives it, it issues an administrative service > invocation to the routing device to update its routing table. > > It's a nice picture, but unfortunately, this scenario isn't something > that can be done today (at least out of the box) as very few products > have an administrative/operational interface exposed as web > services. Personally, I wish more vendors would think about > operational integration as well as functional integration from day > one, but unfortunately, state of the art management capabilities does > not drive sales until many releases down the road. > > -tb > > > On Jan 23, 2006, at 5:15 PM, Gervas Douglas wrote: > > > Most of the discussions that take place on SOA seem to be based on an > > implicit assumption that SOA only applies to "business" applications, > > i.e. that it fits into or belongs solely in the realm of Enterprise > > Application Architecture. I put "business" in inverted commas in the > > sense that in ICT it is used other than in a mere commercial sense, > > but more generally to refer to human end-user application needs. > > > > Should SOA be necessarily restricted to this domain if one envisages > > it essentially as an architecture for designing systems on a flat > > peer-to-peer basis, i.e. a client-server architecture with no fixed > > hierarchy and where an entity could be both client and server? This > > may sound a little vague conceptually, but have any of you come across > > examples of a SOA or a useful opportunity for implementing a SOA below > > the application layer? > > > > Gervas > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Yahoo! Groups Links > > > > > > > > > > > > > Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/service-orientated-architecture/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
