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SOAs and Successive levels of aggregation
Date: 2005-03-15 12:01:35
"There has been a lot of buzz lately about Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA), a new way to integrate information systems using Web Services and other open standards. To understand how SOA works, I like to use an analogy from the natural world called successive levels of aggregation. Complex organisms such as the human body are microcosms that roll up into large scale collaborative systems. For example, the circulatory system is comprised of many discrete systems- the heart, blood cells, arteries and so forth- all of which work together to keep the body alive and support other critical processes such as respiration, speech, and movement. So it is with the information systems that run a business. Macro systems - such as the application responsible for processing purchase orders and cutting pay checks- collaborate with related business applications to produce gloabl systems like Payroll and HR." |
