Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA)

Business processes are constantly changing – service-oriented architectures (SOA) promise a suitably flexible and agile IT landscape.

SOA is based on three pillars:

• Technical analysis of business processes
• Management of reusable services
• Technical implementation of parts of processes as workflows

SOA Challenge

Most system environments cannot normally sensibly merge these three aspects. Models can be used as a means for effectively managing an SOA.  

However, there are also technical obstacles:

• Tools for business process analysis (BPA) are not  designed for mapping these processes in IT.
• SOA repositories manage technical aspects of services but do not relate to business.
• Workflow editions edit technical workflows (e.g. in BPEL) but cannot be related to business processes and business rules.

MID Solution

With its “business–driven IT” vision, MID integrates these SOA aspects in the model-based Innovator environment. Business processes are represented for both technical analysis and implementation. Model-driven development ensures consistent and fast implementation for technical realization. Integration of SOA repository information from the respective SOA infrastructure rounds off the solution.

This means that all those involved in a project finally have an overview of all relationships, can implement changes to business processes more quickly in the IT department and can better manage SOA.