Service Oriented Programming
Encyclopedia
Service-oriented programming (SOP) is a programming paradigm
that uses "services" as the unit of computer work, to design and implement integrated business applications and mission critical
software programs. Services can represent steps of business process
es and thus one of the main applications of this paradigm is the cost-effective delivery of standalone or composite business applications that can “integrate from the inside-out”
using in-memory services as the unit of work.
An in-memory service in SOP can be transparently externalized as a Web Service
operation. Due to language and platform independent Web Service standards, SOP embraces all existing programming paradigms, languages and platforms. In SOP, the design of the programs pivot around the semantics
of service calls, logical routing and data flow description across well-defined service interfaces. All SOP program modules are encapsulated as services and a service can be composed of other nested services in a hierarchical manner with virtually limitless depth to this service stack hierarchy. A composite service can also contain programming constructs some of which are specific and unique to SOP. A service can be an externalized component from another system accessed either through using Web Service
standards or any proprietary API through an in-memory plug-in mechanism.
While SOP supports the basic programming constructs for sequencing, selection and iteration, it is differentiated with a slew of new programming constructs that provide built-in native ability geared towards data list manipulation, data integration
, automated multithreading
of service modules, declarative context management and synchronization
of services. SOP design enables programmers to semantically synchronize the execution of services in order to guarantee that it is correct, or to declare a service module as a transaction boundary with automated commit/rollback behavior.
Semantic design tools and runtime automation platforms can be built to support the fundamental concepts of SOP. For example, a Service Virtual Machine (SVM) that automatically creates service objects as units of work and manages their context can be designed to run based on the SOP program metadata
stored in XML
and created by a design-time automation tool. In SOA terms, the SVM is both a service producer and a service consumer.
The following are some of the key concepts of SOP:
operations. This minimal unit of encapsulation maximizes the opportunities for reusability
within other in-memory service modules as well as across existing and legacy software assets. By using service interfaces for information hiding
, SOP extends the service-oriented
design principles used in SOA to achieve separation of concerns
across in-memory service modules.
in SOP is an in-memory object that describes a well-defined software task with well-defined input and output data structure
s. Service interfaces can be grouped into packages. An SOP service interface can be externalized as a WSDL
operation and a single service or a package of services can be described using WSDL. Furthermore, service interfaces can be assigned to one or many service groups based on shared properties.
In SOP, runtime properties stored on the service interface metadata serve as a contract with the Service Virtual Machine (SVM). One example for the use of runtime properties is that in declarative service synchronization
. A service interface can be declared as a fully synchronized interface, meaning that only a single instance of that service can run at any given time. Or, it can be synchronized based on the actual value of key inputs at runtime, meaning that no two service instances of that service with the same value for their key input data can run at the same time. Furthermore, synchronization can be declared across services interfaces that belong to the same service group. For example, if two services, ‘CreditAccount’ and ‘DebitAccount’, belong to the same synchronization service group and are synchronized on the accountName input field, then no two instances of ‘CreditAccount’ and ‘DebitAccount’ with the same account name can execute at the same time.
and virtualization
. Another significant feature of the service invoker layer is the ability to optimize bandwidth and throughput
when communicating across machines. For example, a “SOAP Invoker” is the default service invoker for remote communication across machines using the Web Service
standards. This invoker can be dynamically swapped out if, for example, the producer and consumer wish to communicate through a packed proprietary API for better security and more efficient use of bandwidth.
or any proprietary protocol.
-driven layer for storing the service interface and service module definitions. Furthermore, if the SOP runtime is supported by a SVM capable of interpreting the metadata layer, the need for automatic code generation can be eliminated. The result is tremendous productivity gain during development, ease of testing and significant agility in deployment.
reference to the same containing composite service.
, translation, manipulation and flow across inner services of a composite service.
, translation, and transformation constructs enable automatic transfer of data across inner services. An inner-service is prepared to run, when it is activated and all of its input dependencies are resolved. All the prepared inner-services within a composite service run in a parallel burst called a “Hypercycle”. This is one of the means by which automatic parallel-processing is supported in SOP. The definition of a composite service contains an implicit directed graph of inner service dependencies. The runtime environment for SOP can create an execution graph based on this directed graph by automatically instantiating and running inner services in parallel whenever possible.
boundary. The runtime environment for SOP automatically creates and manages a hierarchical context for composite service objects which are used as a transaction boundary. This context automatically commits or rollbacks upon the successful execution of the composite service.
communicator plug-in that can on-the-fly translate any in-memory service input data to a Web Service SOAP request, post it to a service producer, and then translate the corresponding SOAP response to in-memory output data on the service. Another example of a service plug-in is a standard database SQL plug-in that supports data access, modification and query operations. A further example that can help establish the fundamental importance of atomic services and service plug-ins is using a service invoker as a service plug-in to transparently virtualize services across different instances of an SOP platform. This unique, component-level virtualization is termed “Service Grid Virtualization” in order to distinguish it from traditional application, or process-level virtualization
.
s for all applications built using the SOP technique. The following sections define some of these opportunities:
d for particular key input values, the SOP runtime environment fetches the cached outputs corresponding to the keyed inputs from its service cache instead of consuming the service. Availability of this built-in mechanism to the SOP application developer can significantly reduce the load on back-end systems.
space with access control where services can access and update a well-defined ata structure that is similar to the input/output structure of services. The shared memory
mechanism within SOP can be programmatically accessed through service interfaces.
in object-oriented programming
. Each possible override implementation can be associated to one or more override configuration portfolios in order to manage activation of groups of related overrides throughout different SOP application installations at the time of deployment
.
) layer, or other applications. Once service accounts are defined, the SOP runtime environment automatically manages access through consumer account provisioning
mechanisms.
and service authorization
. For the purpose of authorization, SOP development projects, consumer accounts, packages and services are treated as resources with access control. In this way, the SOP runtime environment can provide built-in authorization. Standards or proprietary authorization and communication security is customized through service overrides, plug-in invoker and service listener modules.
Today, the SOP paradigm is in the early stages of mainstream adoption. There are four market drivers fueling this adoption:
Programming paradigm
A programming paradigm is a fundamental style of computer programming. Paradigms differ in the concepts and abstractions used to represent the elements of a program and the steps that compose a computation A programming paradigm is a fundamental style of computer programming. (Compare with a...
that uses "services" as the unit of computer work, to design and implement integrated business applications and mission critical
Mission Critical
Mission critical refers to any factor of a system whose failure will result in the failure of business operations. That is, it is critical to the organization's 'mission'....
software programs. Services can represent steps of business process
Business process
A business process or business method is a collection of related, structured activities or tasks that produce a specific service or product for a particular customer or customers...
es and thus one of the main applications of this paradigm is the cost-effective delivery of standalone or composite business applications that can “integrate from the inside-out”
Introduction
SOP inherently promotes Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), however, it is not the same as SOA. While SOA focuses on communication between systems using “services”, SOP provides a new technique to build agile application modulesMemory module
Memory module is a broad term used to refer to a series of dynamic random access memory integrated circuits modules mounted on a printed circuit board and designed for use in personal computers, workstations and servers....
using in-memory services as the unit of work.
An in-memory service in SOP can be transparently externalized as a Web Service
Web service
A Web service is a method of communication between two electronic devices over the web.The W3C defines a "Web service" as "a software system designed to support interoperable machine-to-machine interaction over a network". It has an interface described in a machine-processable format...
operation. Due to language and platform independent Web Service standards, SOP embraces all existing programming paradigms, languages and platforms. In SOP, the design of the programs pivot around the semantics
Semantics
Semantics is the study of meaning. It focuses on the relation between signifiers, such as words, phrases, signs and symbols, and what they stand for, their denotata....
of service calls, logical routing and data flow description across well-defined service interfaces. All SOP program modules are encapsulated as services and a service can be composed of other nested services in a hierarchical manner with virtually limitless depth to this service stack hierarchy. A composite service can also contain programming constructs some of which are specific and unique to SOP. A service can be an externalized component from another system accessed either through using Web Service
Web service
A Web service is a method of communication between two electronic devices over the web.The W3C defines a "Web service" as "a software system designed to support interoperable machine-to-machine interaction over a network". It has an interface described in a machine-processable format...
standards or any proprietary API through an in-memory plug-in mechanism.
While SOP supports the basic programming constructs for sequencing, selection and iteration, it is differentiated with a slew of new programming constructs that provide built-in native ability geared towards data list manipulation, data integration
Data integration
Data integration involves combining data residing in different sources and providing users with a unified view of these data.This process becomes significant in a variety of situations, which include both commercial and scientific domains...
, automated multithreading
Thread (computer science)
In computer science, a thread of execution is the smallest unit of processing that can be scheduled by an operating system. The implementation of threads and processes differs from one operating system to another, but in most cases, a thread is contained inside a process...
of service modules, declarative context management and synchronization
Synchronization
Synchronization is timekeeping which requires the coordination of events to operate a system in unison. The familiar conductor of an orchestra serves to keep the orchestra in time....
of services. SOP design enables programmers to semantically synchronize the execution of services in order to guarantee that it is correct, or to declare a service module as a transaction boundary with automated commit/rollback behavior.
Semantic design tools and runtime automation platforms can be built to support the fundamental concepts of SOP. For example, a Service Virtual Machine (SVM) that automatically creates service objects as units of work and manages their context can be designed to run based on the SOP program metadata
Metadata
The term metadata is an ambiguous term which is used for two fundamentally different concepts . Although the expression "data about data" is often used, it does not apply to both in the same way. Structural metadata, the design and specification of data structures, cannot be about data, because at...
stored in XML
XML
Extensible Markup Language is a set of rules for encoding documents in machine-readable form. It is defined in the XML 1.0 Specification produced by the W3C, and several other related specifications, all gratis open standards....
and created by a design-time automation tool. In SOA terms, the SVM is both a service producer and a service consumer.
Fundamental Concepts
SOP concepts provide a robust base for a semantic approach to programming integration and application logic. There are three significant benefits to this approach:- Semantically, it can raise the level of abstraction for creating composite business applications and thus significantly increase responsiveness to change (i.e. business agilityBusiness agilityBusiness agility is the ability of a business to adapt rapidly and cost efficiently in response to changes in the business environment. Business agility can be maintained by maintaining and adapting goods and services to meet customer demands, adjusting to the changes in a business environment and...
) - Gives rise to the unification of integration and software component development techniques under a single concept and thus significantly reduces the complexity of integration. This unified approach enables “inside-out integration” without the need to replicate data, therefore, significantly reducing the cost and complexity of the overall solution
- Automate multi-threading and virtualizationApplication VirtualizationApplication virtualization is an umbrella term that describes software technologies that improve portability, manageability and compatibility of applications by encapsulating them from the underlying operating system on which they are executed. A fully virtualized application is not installed in...
of applications at the granular (unit-of-work) level.
The following are some of the key concepts of SOP:
Encapsulation
In SOP, in-memory software modules are strictly encapsulated through well-defined service interfaces that can be externalized on-demand as Web ServiceWeb service
A Web service is a method of communication between two electronic devices over the web.The W3C defines a "Web service" as "a software system designed to support interoperable machine-to-machine interaction over a network". It has an interface described in a machine-processable format...
operations. This minimal unit of encapsulation maximizes the opportunities for reusability
Reusability
In computer science and software engineering, reusability is the likelihood a segment of source code that can be used again to add new functionalities with slight or no modification...
within other in-memory service modules as well as across existing and legacy software assets. By using service interfaces for information hiding
Information hiding
In computer science, information hiding is the principle of segregation of the design decisions in a computer program that are most likely to change, thus protecting other parts of the program from extensive modification if the design decision is changed...
, SOP extends the service-oriented
Service-oriented architecture
In software engineering, a Service-Oriented Architecture is a set of principles and methodologies for designing and developing software in the form of interoperable services. These services are well-defined business functionalities that are built as software components that can be reused for...
design principles used in SOA to achieve separation of concerns
Separation of concerns
In computer science, separation of concerns is the process of separating a computer program into distinct features that overlap in functionality as little as possible. A concern is any piece of interest or focus in a program. Typically, concerns are synonymous with features or behaviors...
across in-memory service modules.
Service Interface
A service interfaceInterface (computer science)
In the field of computer science, an interface is a tool and concept that refers to a point of interaction between components, and is applicable at the level of both hardware and software...
in SOP is an in-memory object that describes a well-defined software task with well-defined input and output data structure
Data structure
In computer science, a data structure is a particular way of storing and organizing data in a computer so that it can be used efficiently.Different kinds of data structures are suited to different kinds of applications, and some are highly specialized to specific tasks...
s. Service interfaces can be grouped into packages. An SOP service interface can be externalized as a WSDL
Web Services Description Language
The Web Services Description Language is an XML-based language that is used for describing the functionality offered by a Web service. A WSDL description of a web service provides a machine-readable description of how the service can be called, what parameters it expects and what data structures...
operation and a single service or a package of services can be described using WSDL. Furthermore, service interfaces can be assigned to one or many service groups based on shared properties.
In SOP, runtime properties stored on the service interface metadata serve as a contract with the Service Virtual Machine (SVM). One example for the use of runtime properties is that in declarative service synchronization
Synchronization
Synchronization is timekeeping which requires the coordination of events to operate a system in unison. The familiar conductor of an orchestra serves to keep the orchestra in time....
. A service interface can be declared as a fully synchronized interface, meaning that only a single instance of that service can run at any given time. Or, it can be synchronized based on the actual value of key inputs at runtime, meaning that no two service instances of that service with the same value for their key input data can run at the same time. Furthermore, synchronization can be declared across services interfaces that belong to the same service group. For example, if two services, ‘CreditAccount’ and ‘DebitAccount’, belong to the same synchronization service group and are synchronized on the accountName input field, then no two instances of ‘CreditAccount’ and ‘DebitAccount’ with the same account name can execute at the same time.
Service Invoker
A service invoker makes service requests. It is a pluggable in-memory interface that abstracts the location of a service producer as well as the communication protocol, used between the consumer and producer when going across computer memory, from the SOP runtime environment such as an SVM. The producer can be in-process (i.e. in-memory), outside the process on the same server machine, or virtualized across a set of networked server machines. The use of a service invoker in SOP is the key to location transparencyLocation transparency
In computer networks location transparency describes names used to identify network resources independent of both the user's location and the resource location.A distributed system will need to employ a networked scheme for naming resources....
and virtualization
Application Virtualization
Application virtualization is an umbrella term that describes software technologies that improve portability, manageability and compatibility of applications by encapsulating them from the underlying operating system on which they are executed. A fully virtualized application is not installed in...
. Another significant feature of the service invoker layer is the ability to optimize bandwidth and throughput
Throughput
In communication networks, such as Ethernet or packet radio, throughput or network throughput is the average rate of successful message delivery over a communication channel. This data may be delivered over a physical or logical link, or pass through a certain network node...
when communicating across machines. For example, a “SOAP Invoker” is the default service invoker for remote communication across machines using the Web Service
Web service
A Web service is a method of communication between two electronic devices over the web.The W3C defines a "Web service" as "a software system designed to support interoperable machine-to-machine interaction over a network". It has an interface described in a machine-processable format...
standards. This invoker can be dynamically swapped out if, for example, the producer and consumer wish to communicate through a packed proprietary API for better security and more efficient use of bandwidth.
Service Listener
A service listener receives service requests. It is a pluggable in-memory interface that abstracts the communication protocol for incoming service requests made to the SOP runtime environment such as the SVM. Through this abstract layer, the SOP runtime environment can be virtually embedded within the memory address of any traditional programming environment or application service.Service Implementation
In SOP, a service module can be either implemented as a Composite or Atomic service. It is important to note that Service modules built through the SOP paradigm have an extroverted nature and can be transparently externalized through standards such as SOAPSOAP
SOAP, originally defined as Simple Object Access Protocol, is a protocol specification for exchanging structured information in the implementation of Web Services in computer networks...
or any proprietary protocol.
Semantic-based Approach
One of the most important characteristic of SOP is that it can support a fully semantic-based approach to programming. Furthermore, this semantic-based approach can be layered into a visual environment built on top of a fully metadataMetadata
The term metadata is an ambiguous term which is used for two fundamentally different concepts . Although the expression "data about data" is often used, it does not apply to both in the same way. Structural metadata, the design and specification of data structures, cannot be about data, because at...
-driven layer for storing the service interface and service module definitions. Furthermore, if the SOP runtime is supported by a SVM capable of interpreting the metadata layer, the need for automatic code generation can be eliminated. The result is tremendous productivity gain during development, ease of testing and significant agility in deployment.
Service Implementation: Composite Service
A composite service implementation is the semantic definition of a service module based on SOP techniques and concepts. If you look inside of a black-boxed interface definition of a composite service, you may see other service interfaces connected to each other and connected to SOP programming constructs. A Composite service has a recursive definition meaning that any service inside (“inner service”) may be another atomic or composite service. An inner service may be a recursiveRecursion
Recursion is the process of repeating items in a self-similar way. For instance, when the surfaces of two mirrors are exactly parallel with each other the nested images that occur are a form of infinite recursion. The term has a variety of meanings specific to a variety of disciplines ranging from...
reference to the same containing composite service.
Programming Constructs
SOP supports the basic programming constructs for sequencing, selection and iteration as well as built-in, advance behavior. Furthermore, SOP supports semantic constructs for automatic data mappingData mapping
Data mapping is the process of creating data element mappings between two distinct data models. Data mapping is used as a first step for a wide variety of data integration tasks including:...
, translation, manipulation and flow across inner services of a composite service.
Sequencing
A service inside of the definition of a composite service (an “inner service”) is implicitly sequenced through the semantic connectivity of built-in success or failure ports of other inner services with its built-in activation port. When an inner service runs successfully, all the inner services connected to its success port will run next. If an inner service fails, all the services connected to its failure port will run next.Selection
Logical selection is accomplished through data-driven branching constructs and other configurable constructs. In general, configurable constructs are services built into the SOP platform with inputs and outputs that can assume the input/output shape of other connected services. For example, a configurable construct used for filtering output data of services can take a list of Sales orders, Purchase orders or any other data structure, and filter its data based on user declared filter properties stored on the interface of that instance of the filter construct. In this example, the structure to be filtered becomes the input of the particular instance of the filter construct and the same structure representing the filtered data becomes the output of the configurable construct.Iteration
A composite service can be declared to loop. The loop can be bound by a fixed number of iterations with an optional built-in delay between iterations and it can dynamically terminate using a “service exit with success” or “service exit with failure” construct inside of the looping composite service. Furthermore, any service interface can automatically run in a loop or “foreach” mode, if it is supplied with two or more input components upon automatic preparation. This behavior is supported at design-time when a data list structure from one service is connected to a service that takes a single data structure (i.e. non-plural) as its input. If a runtime property of the composite service interface is declared to support “foreach” in parallel, then the runtime automation environment can automatically multi-thread the loop and run it in parallel. This is an example of how SOP programming constructs provide built-in advanced functionality.Data Transformation, Mapping, and Translation
Data mappingData mapping
Data mapping is the process of creating data element mappings between two distinct data models. Data mapping is used as a first step for a wide variety of data integration tasks including:...
, translation, and transformation constructs enable automatic transfer of data across inner services. An inner-service is prepared to run, when it is activated and all of its input dependencies are resolved. All the prepared inner-services within a composite service run in a parallel burst called a “Hypercycle”. This is one of the means by which automatic parallel-processing is supported in SOP. The definition of a composite service contains an implicit directed graph of inner service dependencies. The runtime environment for SOP can create an execution graph based on this directed graph by automatically instantiating and running inner services in parallel whenever possible.
Exception Handling
Exception handling is an run time error in java. Exception handling in SOP is simply accomplished by connecting the failure port of inner services to another inner service, or to a programming construct. ‘Exit with Failure’ and “Exit with Success’ constructs are examples of constructs used for exception handling. If no action is taken on the failure port of a service, then the outer (parent) service will automatically fail and the standard output messages from the failed inner service will automatically bubble up to the standard output of the parent.Transactional Boundary
A composite service can be declared as a transactionTransaction processing
In computer science, transaction processing is information processing that is divided into individual, indivisible operations, called transactions. Each transaction must succeed or fail as a complete unit; it cannot remain in an intermediate state...
boundary. The runtime environment for SOP automatically creates and manages a hierarchical context for composite service objects which are used as a transaction boundary. This context automatically commits or rollbacks upon the successful execution of the composite service.
Service Compensation
Special composite services, called compensation services, can be associated with any service within SOP. When a composite service that is declared as a transaction boundary fails without an exception handling routing, the SOP runtime environment automatically dispatches the compensation services associated with all the inner services which have already executed successfully.Service Implementation: Atomic Service
An Atomic service is an in-memory extension of the SOP runtime environment through a Service Native Interface (SNI) it is essentially a plug-in mechanism. For example, if SOP is automated through an SVM, a service plug-in is dynamically loaded into the SVM when any associated service is consumed. An example of a service plug-in would be a SOAPSOAP
SOAP, originally defined as Simple Object Access Protocol, is a protocol specification for exchanging structured information in the implementation of Web Services in computer networks...
communicator plug-in that can on-the-fly translate any in-memory service input data to a Web Service SOAP request, post it to a service producer, and then translate the corresponding SOAP response to in-memory output data on the service. Another example of a service plug-in is a standard database SQL plug-in that supports data access, modification and query operations. A further example that can help establish the fundamental importance of atomic services and service plug-ins is using a service invoker as a service plug-in to transparently virtualize services across different instances of an SOP platform. This unique, component-level virtualization is termed “Service Grid Virtualization” in order to distinguish it from traditional application, or process-level virtualization
Application Virtualization
Application virtualization is an umbrella term that describes software technologies that improve portability, manageability and compatibility of applications by encapsulating them from the underlying operating system on which they are executed. A fully virtualized application is not installed in...
.
Cross-cutting Concepts
SOP presents significant opportunities to support cross-cutting concernCross-cutting concern
In computer science, cross-cutting concerns are aspects of a program which affect other concerns.These concerns often cannot be cleanly decomposed from the rest of the system in both the design and implementation, and can result in either scattering , tangling , or both.For instance, if writing an...
s for all applications built using the SOP technique. The following sections define some of these opportunities:
Service Instrumentation
The SOP runtime environment can systematically provide built-in and optimized profiling, logging and metering for all services in real-time.Declarative & Context-sensitive Service Caching
Based on declared key input values of a service instance, the outputs of a non time-sensitive inner service can be cached by the SOP runtime environment when running in the context of a particular composite service. When a service is cacheCache
In computer engineering, a cache is a component that transparently stores data so that future requests for that data can be served faster. The data that is stored within a cache might be values that have been computed earlier or duplicates of original values that are stored elsewhere...
d for particular key input values, the SOP runtime environment fetches the cached outputs corresponding to the keyed inputs from its service cache instead of consuming the service. Availability of this built-in mechanism to the SOP application developer can significantly reduce the load on back-end systems.
Service Triggers
SOP provides a mechanism for associating a special kind of composite service, trigger service, to any other service. When that service is consumed, the SOP platform automatically creates and consumes an instance of the associated trigger service with an in-memory copy of the inputs of the triggering service. This consumption is non-intrusive to the execution of the triggering service. A service trigger can be declared to run upon activation, failure or success completion of the triggering service.Inter-Service Communication
In addition to the ability to call any service, Service Request Events and Shared Memory are two of the SOP built-in mechanisms provided for inter-service communication. The consumption of a service is treated as an Event in SOP. SOP provides a correlation-based event mechanism that results in the pre-emption of a running composite that has declared, through a “wait” construct, the need to wait for one or more other service consumption events to happen with specified input data values. The execution of the composite service continues when services are consumed with specific correlation key inputs associated with the wait construct. SOP also provides a shared memoryShared memory
In computing, shared memory is memory that may be simultaneously accessed by multiple programs with an intent to provide communication among them or avoid redundant copies. Depending on context, programs may run on a single processor or on multiple separate processors...
space with access control where services can access and update a well-defined ata structure that is similar to the input/output structure of services. The shared memory
Shared memory
In computing, shared memory is memory that may be simultaneously accessed by multiple programs with an intent to provide communication among them or avoid redundant copies. Depending on context, programs may run on a single processor or on multiple separate processors...
mechanism within SOP can be programmatically accessed through service interfaces.
Service Overrides
In SOP, customizations are managed through an inventive feature called Service Overrides. Through this feature, a service implementation can be statically or dynamically overridden by one of many possible implementations at runtime. This feature is analogous to polymorphismPolymorphism in object-oriented programming
Subtype polymorphism, almost universally called just polymorphism in the context of object-oriented programming, is the ability to create a variable, a function, or an object that has more than one form. The word derives from the Greek "πολυμορφισμός" meaning "having multiple forms"...
in object-oriented programming
Object-oriented programming
Object-oriented programming is a programming paradigm using "objects" – data structures consisting of data fields and methods together with their interactions – to design applications and computer programs. Programming techniques may include features such as data abstraction,...
. Each possible override implementation can be associated to one or more override configuration portfolios in order to manage activation of groups of related overrides throughout different SOP application installations at the time of deployment
Software deployment
Software deployment is all of the activities that make a software system available for use.The general deployment process consists of several interrelated activities with possible transitions between them. These activities can occur at the producer site or at the consumer site or both...
.
Consumer Account Provisioning
Select services can be deployed securely for external programmatic consumption by a presentation (GUIGraphical user interface
In computing, a graphical user interface is a type of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices with images rather than text commands. GUIs can be used in computers, hand-held devices such as MP3 players, portable media players or gaming devices, household appliances and...
) layer, or other applications. Once service accounts are defined, the SOP runtime environment automatically manages access through consumer account provisioning
Provisioning
In telecommunication, provisioning is the process of preparing and equipping a network to allow it to provide services to its users. In NS/EP telecommunications services, "provisioning" equates to "initiation" and includes altering the state of an existing priority service or capability.In a...
mechanisms.
Security
The SOP runtime environment can systematically provide built-in authenticationAuthentication
Authentication is the act of confirming the truth of an attribute of a datum or entity...
and service authorization
Authorization
Authorization is the function of specifying access rights to resources, which is related to information security and computer security in general and to access control in particular. More formally, "to authorize" is to define access policy...
. For the purpose of authorization, SOP development projects, consumer accounts, packages and services are treated as resources with access control. In this way, the SOP runtime environment can provide built-in authorization. Standards or proprietary authorization and communication security is customized through service overrides, plug-in invoker and service listener modules.
Virtualization and Automatic Multithreading
Since all artifacts of SOP are well encapsulated services and all SOP mechanisms, such as shared memory, can be provided as distributable services, large scale virtualization can be automated by the SOP runtime environment. Also, the hierarchical service stack of a composite service with the multiple execution graphs associated to its inner services, at each level, provides tremendous opportunities for automated multi-threading to the SOP runtime environment.History
The term ‘Service Oriented Programming’ was first published in 2002 by Alberto Sillitti, Tullio Vernazza and Giancarlo Succi in a book called "Software Reuse: Methods, Techniques, and Tools.” SOP, as described above, is neither influenced by nor reflects Sillitti, Vernazza and Succi’s use of the term.Today, the SOP paradigm is in the early stages of mainstream adoption. There are four market drivers fueling this adoption:
- Multi-core Processor Architecture: due to heat dissipation issues with increasing processor clock speeds beyond 4 GHZ, the leading processor vendors such as IntelIntel CorporationIntel Corporation is an American multinational semiconductor chip maker corporation headquartered in Santa Clara, California, United States and the world's largest semiconductor chip maker, based on revenue. It is the inventor of the x86 series of microprocessors, the processors found in most...
have turned to multi-core architecture to deliver ever increasing performance. Refer to the article “The Free Lunch Is Over" This change in processor architecture forces a change in the way we develop our software modules and applications: applications must be written for concurrencyConcurrency (computer science)In computer science, concurrency is a property of systems in which several computations are executing simultaneously, and potentially interacting with each other...
in order to utilize multi-core processors and writing concurrent programs is a challenging task. SOP provides a built-in opportunity for automated multithreadingThread (computer science)In computer science, a thread of execution is the smallest unit of processing that can be scheduled by an operating system. The implementation of threads and processes differs from one operating system to another, but in most cases, a thread is contained inside a process...
. - Application VirtualizationApplication VirtualizationApplication virtualization is an umbrella term that describes software technologies that improve portability, manageability and compatibility of applications by encapsulating them from the underlying operating system on which they are executed. A fully virtualized application is not installed in...
: SOP promotes built-in micro control over location transparency of the service constituents of any service module. This results in automatic and granular virtualizationApplication VirtualizationApplication virtualization is an umbrella term that describes software technologies that improve portability, manageability and compatibility of applications by encapsulating them from the underlying operating system on which they are executed. A fully virtualized application is not installed in...
of application components (versus an entire application process) across a clusterCluster (computing)A computer cluster is a group of linked computers, working together closely thus in many respects forming a single computer. The components of a cluster are commonly, but not always, connected to each other through fast local area networks...
or gridGrid computingGrid computing is a term referring to the combination of computer resources from multiple administrative domains to reach a common goal. The grid can be thought of as a distributed system with non-interactive workloads that involve a large number of files...
of SOP runtime platforms. - Service-oriented architectureService-oriented architectureIn software engineering, a Service-Oriented Architecture is a set of principles and methodologies for designing and developing software in the form of interoperable services. These services are well-defined business functionalities that are built as software components that can be reused for...
(SOA) and demand for integrated and composite applications: in the beginning, the adoption of SOP will follow the adoption curve of SOA with a small lag. This is because services generated through SOA can be easily assembled and consumed through SOP. The more Web services proliferate, the more it makes sense to take advantage of the semantic nature of SOP. On the other hand, since SOA is inherent in SOP, SOP provides a cost-effective way to deliver SOA to mainstream markets. - Software as a ServiceSoftware as a ServiceSoftware as a service , sometimes referred to as "on-demand software," is a software delivery model in which software and its associated data are hosted centrally and are typically accessed by users using a thin client, normally using a web browser over the Internet.SaaS has become a common...
(SaaS): capabilities of the current SaaS platforms cannot address the customization and integration complexities required by large enterprises. SOP can significantly reduce the complexity of integration and customization. This will drive SOP into the next generation SaaS platforms.
External links
- http://nextaxiom.com
- http://www.springerlink.com/content/hmeem7xl1648c47n/ "Service Oriented Programming: A New Paradigm of Software Reuse"
- http://blog.itaniumsolutions.org/2008/01/
- http://in.sys-con.com/node/467329