In this article, I would like to share some experiences with a visualisation for the business in a SOA environment. MediaWiki is the basis for the visualisation tool because it is a wide spread and well known environment. For this purpose, the normal static MediaWiki is enhanced with some dynamic features to support hyperlinks for the inter-relations between the entities in the SOA environment.
Chapter 2 will give some background information on the environment where this project has been carried out. Chapter 3 explains the solution which is implemented in the past year whilst chapter 4 presents some ideas for future developments. Chapter 5 finally presents some lessons learned.
Abbreviations
| Abbreviation | In full | Description |
|---|---|---|
| BE | Back End | A system out of the EAI scope which provides services for front end systems. Usually, it provides a coherent set of services for a specific domain. |
| BEA | Back End Adapter | A component within the EAI scope with a collection of services which communicate directly with a back end system. |
| EAI | Enterprise Application Integration | EAI is the strategy, a set of methods and tools for integrating all systems across an enterprise. It provides a common framework for communication and data coordination between applications. |
| FE | Front End | A system out of the EAI scope which uses the EAI services, indirectly provided by back end systems. Usually, it enables end users to obtain and maintain information stored in back end systems, e.g. the organisations web site. |
| FEA | Front End Adapter | A component within the EAI scope with a collection of services which communicate directly with a front end system. |
| FS | Functional Specifications | In this organisation, the Functional Specifications are laid down in a set of word documents based on defined templates. In the EAI department, they are generated by the design tools used. |
| GFA | Generic Front end Adapter | A generic Front End adapter that offers EAI services on a generic interface (usually SOAP) that is available for all Front Ends. |
| SOA | Service Oriented Architecture | According to Gartner, a Service Oriented Architecture is a logical architecture where definitive business functions of an application are exposed for programmatic access via a well-defined formal interface, with some means of identifying and locating the function and the interface when it is needed. |
| SOAP | Simple Object Access Protocol | SOAP is a lightweight protocol for exchange of information in a decentralized, distributed environment. |
| XML | Extensible Markup Language | See “https://www.w3.org/TR/xml“. |
| VCS | Version Control System | A Version Control System enables versioning, reliability and team work. |