IT Strategic Initiative: Service Oriented Architecture
Overview
The purpose of this project is to implement a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) that includes services, services infrastructure, governance processes, and several important tenets of design supporting communication between two computer systems. A service, in this case, is a piece of software that enables one system to perform a unit of work on behalf of another system. Some common service functions are:
- Initiating an action (event + action)
- Retrieving or providing data
- Notification of an event (publish/subscribe)
Service interactions are organized and managed by an infrastructure layer comprised of three parts:
- Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) that acts as a switchboard, passing providing services from one system to the consuming services of another
- Message Broker that can notify a subscribing system of changes to data which may prompt the subscribing system to request those changes
- The Web Services Registry (WSR) that acts as a catalog of available services, and which can enforce workflow rules for requesting access to services
While this infrastructure layer is a key component of SOA, it should not be mistaken for SOA itself.
Background
The University has many different commercial off-the-shelf and custom-built transactional systems that have expanded in number and functionality over the years. These systems add great value and will continue to play a critical role at Northwestern. However, they are ultimately “niche” solutions, designed to run as self-contained systems isolated from one another. Implementing a SOA framework is intended to foster unification and integration across the various University systems and functional areas to improve administrative performance across schools and departments.
Goals and Objectives
- Enable data to flow between applications in real-time
- Move processes online for self-service functionality
- Increase overall development efficiency
- Multiply the benefits of individual projects
- Minimize impact of SOA resource investments slowing pace of individual legacy system enhancements
Benefits
- Enables real-time integration
- Enables faster integration of new systems
- Reduces spread of data (“multiple versions”)
- Enables exposure of functionality in portals and distributed development of mobile apps
- Lower overall support requirements because system connections are loosely coupled and reusable
Last Updated: 13 April 2018
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