Contents

Introduction

Setting the scene for this publication

Section 1: Arguments for soa

In a changing world it is becoming increasingly important for any Higher and Further Education Institution to use its information to support its present and future business processes. There have been a number of approaches to achieving the integration this implies with various strengths and weaknesses. The most recent of these, and some would say the most promising, is Service Oriented Architecture (SOA). This section introduces the questions that senior management and IT directors need to ask themselves before they embark on designing and implementing a SOA.

Section 2: Establishing Your Readiness

This section provides material aimed to help with establishing one's bearings in relation to the options and ideas presented in the following sections. Emphasis is made on the complex of dimensions of quality that should influence any decision of how to approach service orientation at a technical level and at an organisational level, and whether the organisation is "ready" to embark on the SOA journey.

Section 3: Approaches to Service Orientation

Once it has been determined to undertake a SOA project, the first action has to be to establish what outcomes the project needs to achieve. Which are the areas where technological intervention is supported? How is it envisaged that this will happen? What are the new processes that will be supported? What SOA approaches are best applied in specific contexts or for specific needs? These are explored in this section.

Section 4: Technological options

This section elaborates the different techncial approaches that can be taken to designing a SOA. For those cases that warrant a technical intervention, current service technologies are put in their wider context. Consideration is also given to whether there might be cases in which an existing function does not need to be exposed as a new (web) service interface. The impact of the rise of cloud computing is examined, before moving on to sub-sections that consider particular SOA technologies (WS-* or SOAP, REST, ROA/WOA, and ESB).

Resources

 

All Recommended Reading

Recommended readings from each section collected in one place

JISC Funded work

A collection of resources that have been funded by JISC since 2004 in the area of soa (to be continually added to)

SOA resources in delicious

This is a collection of delicious bookmarked resources relating to service oriented approaches. If you'd like to add your own please let us know.

Contact

Contact the editors of the site.

JISC CETIS site

JISC CETIS is a JISC Innovation Support Centre providing advice to the UK Higher and Post-16 Education sectors on educational technology and standards. The JISC CETIS web site brings together educational technology news, comment and analysis, as well as information on our community events. The aim is to contribute to current debates and future thinking in this rapidly growing and changing field.