James Pasley

The concept of a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) existed long before the current set of Web Services standards. However, it's the widespread adoption of these standards that has enabled the idea of SOA to enter the mainstream and to start delivering the level of connectivity and savings it has promised for so long. Now that SOA has hit the mainstream, some are attempting to show how SOA can be successfully implemented using pre-Web Services technologies. This article will show why these approaches fail to fulfil all aspects of SOA and become exercises in rediscovering why SOA depends on Web Services technology. Before looking at some of the shortcuts that people take, let's start with a quick recap of the core principals of SOA. SOA is an approach to software devel... (more)

The ESB in Your SOA

Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) projects have evolved. A couple of years ago it would have been sufficient to demonstrate connectivity between systems that were previously isolated. Nowadays these connections must provide guarantees of reliability, security, and performance. Delivering on such requirements presents a number of challenges. Not all of the challenges faced during an SOA ... (more)

Connecting SaaS Providers with Their Customers

Software is now increasingly provided as a service; in other words, it is now offered as a hosted application that users access through Web browsers. Many companies see this as an effective way of outsourcing some of their IT requirements. However, they face an increasing number of integration issues as part of this strategy. Many are turning to ESBs for a solution. As the use of Software... (more)