Re: Application design & architecture -- MIDRANGE-L

Eric,

I think most people are at the same place as you are when it comes to SOA. Iwould say that there is no question about which applications are suited forSOA 'deployment' - it is ALL of them.

SOA is an architecture for your entire business. It is not something thatyou compare to SQL stored procedures, for example. SQL stored procedures areone of the technologies that could be used to create SOA - just as ILE is,just as RPG is, etc.

Compare this to building a house. Most people hire the builder first - justlike we are the developers. The builder has tools - hammers, saws, wrenches.The developer has tools - RPG, SQL, J2ee, .NET. The architect is thedesigner of how the house looks - where things fit together, the standardsof plumbing, wiring, how rooms fit together, etc. The SOA architect is theone who designs how things fit together - modularized, loosely coupled, openstandards, interoperable, etc. Commitment control is a tool for a developer,not an architect.

Service-Oriented Architecture does not dictate the tools you use. SOAprovides the foundation, the framework, the standards for how the 'house'will be built.



Trevor

----- Original Message -----From: "DeLong, Eric"

Subject: RE: Application design & architecture

Trevor,

I believe this is part of the question that's being asked....  In my own
case, I'm hoping to qualify which application designs are better suitedforSOA deployment. We're looking to establish guidlines for ILE developmentso
that our runtime modules can be deployed using a variety of methods (SOA,
SQL stored procedure, etc...)

I would assume that n-tier designs, which seperate the presentation logic
from the business logic elements, are preferred for SOA.  However, with my
limited understanding of SOA, it's hard to know whether n-tier is reallythedirection I need to take. So many of the "best practices" that arecommonly
in use today are unacceptably out-of-date.
Take a benign example... Commitment control. In all the shops I'veworked,
this is one of the "dirty words".  Ask someone WHY they won't consider
commitment control, and you'll hear every excuse imaginable, none of which
is applicable to the modern systems that we work with today. I'veactually
had more luck promoting this concept if I avoid using the AS400 specific
vocabulary.  Call it "Transaction Isolation" and people will at least
listen...

In a general sense, I'd like to devise a strategy to re-engineer our
applications to play a larger role in IT outside of the iSeries.  SOA is
probably the architecture we will adopt, so we need to ensure that our
development standards will support this goal.

Eric DeLong
Sally Beauty Company
MIS-Project Manager (BSG)
940-297-2863 or ext. 1863