> Opinion Paper

How SOA Stays in the

Salad Days of Its Youth
SOA Lifecycle Management

2008 / 04

www.detecon.com
 How SOA Stays in the Salad Days of Its Youth

Table of Contents
1 Executive Summary ............................................................................................ 3
2 SOA Lifecycle...................................................................................................... 4
2.1 Scope .......................................................................................................... 4
2.2 Goals ........................................................................................................... 4
3 Detecon Approach to SOA Lifecycle Management ............................................. 5
3.1 Identification ................................................................................................ 6
3.2 Vitalization ................................................................................................... 6
3.3 Introduction.................................................................................................. 7
3.3.1 Planning ...................................................................................................... 7
3.3.2 Building........................................................................................................ 7
3.4 Deployment ................................................................................................. 7
3.4.1 Monitoring and Control ................................................................................ 7
3.4.2 Change........................................................................................................ 8
3.4.3 Phaseout ..................................................................................................... 8
3.5 Retirement................................................................................................... 8
4 Conclusion .......................................................................................................... 9
5 The Author ........................................................................................................ 10
6 The Company.................................................................................................... 11

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 How SOA Stays in the Salad Days of Its Youth

1 Executive Summary

SOA initiatives have started very enthusiastically. Every single project goes SOA; everyone
defines some sort of services. There is a resistant movement arising from the opposite front
that refuses to embrace the approach. All of a sudden the dynamic gets out of control and
the value of SOA becomes spongy due to these contradicting fronts.

Controlled adoption of SOA is crucial to its success. This also applies to escorting the
development of the governance aspects of SOA and its lifecycle. Doing it correctly makes
the SOA initiative stay fresh and firm as in the salad of its youth.

As a brief analysis, we can state that enterprise IT systems show a high and heterogeneous
degree of interconnectivity, which is grown evolutionary to increase automation. Such IT
systems are typically developed in independently executed projects. As a result there are
various approaches taken as to how and which information is exchanged between IT
systems. The effect of this interdependency is an increased complexity which slows down IT
response to change at the same time capital and operation expenses increase.

Service-oriented architecture is not another integration technology, but an overarching set of

principles to manage enterprise IT complexity. The central working unit hereby is the
“service,” a company-wide reusable and self-containing contribution to the business. Within
an SOA services become an essential part of enterprise IT asset which needs to be
managed.

The process of managing services as enterprise assets is the SOA lifecycle process, which
is one enabler for SOA governance.

Detecon SOA Lifecycle framework

What does it cover?
Detecon SOA Lifecycle is an adoptable reference framework that supports all aspects of
an enterprise SOA Lifecycle

What Detecon SOA Lifecycle framework is What Detecon SOA Lifecycle framework is NOT

Q The full Detecon SOA Lifecycle is an adoptable
reference that supports all aspects of an
enterprise SOA consisting of
O Service portfolio management, as a continuous
process to create and manage the enterprise SOA
assets and manage the aggregated TCO
O Service lifecycle management, as a cyclic process to
operationalize particular versions of a service
Q While preferring certain standards, the reference
framework does not prescribe any specific
notation
Q Methods inside the reference framework are not
mandatory and replaceable by other practices
Q The reference framework does not prescribe any
particular technology

Q All activities in Detecon Lifecycle framework are

supported by industry proven methods and
patterns
Q The Lifecycle framework interoperates
seamlessly with Detecon SOA Governance
framework, that can be mapped to a wide variety
SOA LIFECYCLE-FINAL INPUT.PPT

of exiting organizations

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 How SOA Stays in the Salad Days of Its Youth

2 SOA Lifecycle

2.1 Scope

One should be very clear that scope of SOA Lifecycle. It is not only about developing
executable code for service. With the scope narrowed down to technology-centric views, a
SOA initiative is likely to fail. This does not mean that the process is not reaching down into
technology stacks, but it is not just about technology stacks.

SOA lifecycle management as a process addresses all aspects of an enterprise SOA

initiative. This includes an initiation phase that is about shaping SOA domains and
initialization of the first set of enterprise services and enterprise business objects, the overall
aspect of the enterprise staying in SOA paradigms and the enterprise leaving the SOA
approach. Thus it is sort of a macro SOA lifecycle.

At a finer level the process defines a cycle from identification of a service, its implementation
and deployment, its monitoring and measurement and its controlled change down to the
moment when a service is retired. This can be viewed as a sort of micro-SOA lifecycle that
affects a particular service and service version. This process is an adapted view of the
Detecon ICT process view.

The glue that joins the macro and the micro view of the SOA lifecycle is SOA governance.

2.2 Goals

There are certain requirements that should be met throughout the lifecycle process:
O Minimize the impact on day-to-day business
O Systematically identify and plan new service implementation, preventing duplications
O Ensure service implementation and deployment quality
O Ensure continuous improvements by monitoring service KPIs
O Controlled management of change

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3 Detecon Approach to SOA Lifecycle Management

Typically a SOA potential analysis is the first step to uncovering opportunities and challenges
when implementing SOA to a particular enterprise. During the potential analysis, not only the
existing technology is assessed, but also the organizational readiness and the mindset of
stakeholders and also the financial aspects of implementing SOA.
O As a result a strategic approach is developed regarding how to address SOA in the
enterprise. This approach has far more in focus than technology thus also
addressing strong governance which fits this particular enterprise is also part of this
strategy.
O To narrow the scope of this paper we will leave out aspects of governance and
change of mindset and focus on the lifecycle of some specific artifacts in service-
oriented architecture.
O Detecon’s approach to SOA is a three-step process of:
– Identification, which is the initialization activity in the process
– Vitalization, a continuous customer-to-customer process to operationalize all
artifacts
– Retirement, a wrap-up of the SOA activity when there is a paradigm shift in
managing the IT

SOA Lifecycle Management

Systematic continuous alignment
The process is continuously applied to ensure IT Business alignment.

Communication Level 1

Identify Vitalize Retire

The overall process describes

Q Domains Q Service provider Q Analyze business a continues process of
lifecycle initialization /focus change impact identifying service candidates
Q Business Object
on IT due to
Modell Q Service consumer and the business involved, to
paradigm shift
Q Business Process Q Make, reuse, buy operationalizing particular
O Process
decomposition services and their monitoring
Q Plan, build, deploy, optimization
Q Reuse identification monitor, change but also decommissioning of a
O …
Q Potential analysis Q Activity monitoring service.
Q Change
Q Stakeholder management Communication in this process
management
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is an important factor to keep

Q Roadmap definition companies SOA alive.

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In the following we will go through each of the three steps and discuss the main activities
and the characteristic deliverables.

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3.1 Identification

The step of identification initializes the enterprise SOA landscape by analyzing processes to
shape three major tools, namely:
O Enterprise domain model
O Enterprise service portfolio
O Enterprise business object model
This step is ideally implemented in the form of a project, which represents the kick-off of the
enterprise SOA initiative.
The enterprise domain model defines a set of containers in the enterprise service portfolio
that covers the entire area of enterprises business. Domains define the border of ownership
of services and business objects. This model is aimed to be a stable layer between volatile
business and the constantly changing IT technology.
Analyzing the data flow between enterprise core processes defines an initial set of objects
which form a starting point for the enterprise business object model (BOM), as a common
semantic denominator of enterprise data objects and their relationships.
As the objects in BOM are assigned and owned by specific domains, there is a need to make
associated data available to processes which typically cross domain boundaries. Defining
such inter-domain relationships forms an initial set of services that are assigned to the
service portfolio. This set is later expanded with services representing business capabilities.
The service portfolio is the central repository for enterprise services that increases and
decreases through business demand management.
This initial service portfolio is meant to provide a starting point to implement the SOA in the
enterprise; it is not a final set. Services from this portfolio must be prioritized according to
business needs and put into an implementation plan. Execution of this plan is the trigger for
later phases. It is not necessary to implement the entire service portfolio at once; it is rather
common to focus on few services in one suitable domain for the beginning. Which Domain is
a suitable candidate for the initial action is not only the matter of strategy and resources; one
should go for a low hanging fruit first.
At the first glance the initial tooling of the domain model, service portfolio and the business
object model are decoupled entities. They are glued together through SOA governance,
which is not the subject of this paper.

3.2 Vitalization

“Vitalization,” the implementation of SOA artifacts, follows the adoption of Detecon’s ICT
reference model which allows cyclic iterations, thus all elements in the reference process
also play a role in the vitalization process. The main goal is to cover service and BOM
lifecycle.

Detecon Reference IT-Process model Service Lifecycle

The Detecon Reference IT-Process model (Level 1)
The “service lifecycle” is the core part of the vitalization stage in the SOA lifecycle

Level 1 Level 2 of vitalization

Strategy & Finance & Innovations-
Architecture
Governance Controlling Management

Project Portfolio Management

Applications
Planning Transition
Customer Engineering
to Operation
Customer & Design Customer
Mgmt. Production
Infrastructure

Service Support

Procurement/ HR Security & Process &

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Primary process:
Partner Mgmt. Mgmt. Risk Mgmt. Organization
Sekundary processe:

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The following sections provide a high-level overview on the activities of each process step,
highlighting the relationship to the Detecon reference model and explaining the extensions,
when applicable.

3.3 Introduction

The process step of introduction is about managing various enterprise

aspects and their impact on the service portfolio and business object
model, taking the overall strategy into account and making sure that the
outcome conforms to the enterprise architecture strategy.

This includes:
O Analyzing specific project solutions, but with a wider reuse in mind
O Analyzing customer demands
O Adoption of innovation trends
O Proactive process analysis and breakdown

As a result a new service might be introduced to the service portfolio or an existing service
might be extended to reflect customer requirements in the service portfolio. The service is
prioritized and scheduled for further steps.

3.3.1 Planning

In the planning phase, the overall business and IT requirements and

corresponding KPIs are understood and documented and the
implementation aspects are scheduled. All stakeholders are involved
and a migration path is developed. Regarding the concrete service
the meta-data is updated to reflect the phase.

3.3.2 Building

This phase is about engineering. The service is formalized in terms of

contracts through coherent Web Service’s standards and the resulting
interface is implemented on a suitable backend. Service contracts will
define proper compliance with operational requirements. These include:
security policies, exception handling, SLAs, reliability and availability.

Several quality gates ensure the conformity of the service to SOA

standards and enterprise guidelines. When the service implementation has passed the
acceptance criteria it will be ready for rollout and deployment.

3.4 Deployment

This step marks the transition between engineering and operations. It includes all necessary
activities such as infrastructure setup and publishing the contract and the meta-data in the
enterprise service repository, in terms of a runtime repository.

3.4.1 Monitoring and Control

After the service is deployed it is taken over by operations, which will

maintain and control the runtime status of the service and monitor its
activity. Activity reports are used to track the service KPIs.

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 How SOA Stays in the Salad Days of Its Youth

3.4.2 Change

Change applies to services that are already in use. Instead of being

initially introduced, the service will alter into a new version, due to
changing requirements in functional or non-functional aspects. This
marks the process to cycle.

The concept of versioning services makes it possible to have several

service versions serving business needs at once, allowing faster time to market of new
business demands without endangering day-to-day business.

3.4.3 Phaseout

Older service versions will have a larger outphase. Because the provider-
consumer topology is known in a SOA, there is a notion of “this service is
not in use anymore”. If there is no further planning to reuse this particular
service, perhaps because it is superseeded by another service version, the
service is marked in the registry as phased-out and the service provider
system is safe to be switched off.

3.5 Retirement

Detecon believes that a SOA is a suitable approach to managing IT in the long term.
Nevertheless, paradigm shifts may occur that introduce a better alternative approach for a
particular enterprise. So the question is how to deal with the end of a SOA initiative in an
enterprise.

Currently there is little known about the retirement of a SOA. Most of the companies are
about to set up a SOA. In some other companies attempts to set up a SOA failed. Some
companies have a successfully implemented SOA initiative and are about to see the effects,
but there is no company that is wrapping up the SOA approach to shift to an alternative
paradigm.

The idea is not to stop all activities and drop all governance of a current SOA and start the
new initiative with a big bang, but to define a transition between the new paradigm and the
SOA.

Ideally, the new approach has some architectural visions that can be compared to those of
the SOA to figure out the differences. After the differences have been worked out, then the
business, information and data architectures of the new paradigm can take form. Here all
artifacts from the SOA initiative are helpful. They should be considered as a foundation for
managing the change. This also applies to the role of SOA governance. A migration plan
must be developed that describes the move from the SOA to the new paradigm.

Only after the solution space of the new approach is examined and the foundation is formed
will it be useful to cease vitalization activities and start the migration according to plan.
Completing the plan, the SOA-related technology is switched off and the interfaces of SOA
governance structures are eliminated from the company’s internal processes.

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4 Conclusion

Service-oriented architecture is a tool for managing enterprise IT complexity. First-class

artifacts of SOA, namely the enterprise domain model, service portfolio and the business
object model, are strategic enterprise assets in such an environment. This paper introduced
a process to manage the lifecycle of these assets.

This cyclical process is an adoption of the Detecon IT Reference process and therefore
proven to work in enterprise context.

The SOA lifecycle is a straightforward process that is vital to initializing and managing SOA
artifacts in an enterprise. It can be seen as the adoption of the open group architecture
framework (TOGAF) to implement a service oriented architecture in an enterprise.

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5 The Author

Ramtin Mesbahipour has been a Senior Consultant for Detecon in

the Competence Practice Information Technology since 2007.
Following his studies of computer sciences at the RWTH Aachen, he
began his career as a system integrator in the area of
telecommunications in 1998. Through numerous projects he has
gained substantial knowledge of the infrastructures, products and
business processes in integration technologies and patterns.

He can be reached at: +49 228 700 1933 or

ramtin.mesbahipour@detecon.com

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6 The Company
Detecon International GmbH

Detecon International is a leading worldwide company for integrated management and

technology consulting founded in 2002 from the merger of consulting firms DETECON and
Diebold. Based on its comprehensive expertise in information and communication
technology (ICT), Detecon provides consulting services to customers from all key industries.
The company's focus is on the development of new business models, optimization of
existing strategies and increase of corporate efficiency through strategy, organization and
process improvements. This combined with Detecon's exceptional technological expertise
enables us to provide consulting services along our customers' entire value-added chain..
The industry know-how of our consultants and the knowledge we have gained from
successful management and ICT projects in over 100 countries forms the foundation of our
services. Detecon is a subsidiary of T-Systems, the business customers brand of Deutsche
Telekom.

Integrated Management and Technology Competence

We possess an excellent capability to translate our technological expertise and

comprehensive industry and procedural knowledge into concrete strategies and solutions.
From analysis to design and implementation, we use integrated, systematic and customer-
oriented consulting approaches. These entail, among other things, the evaluation of core
competencies, modular design of services, value-oriented client management and the
development of efficient structures in order to be able to distinguish oneself on the market
with innovative products. All of this makes companies in the global era more flexible and
faster – at lower costs.

Detecon offers both horizontal services that are oriented towards all industries and can entail
architecture, marketing or purchasing strategies, for example, as well as vertical consulting
services that presuppose extensive industry knowledge. Detecon's particular strength in the
ICT industry is documented by numerous domestic and international projects for
telecommunications providers, mobile operators and regulatory authorities that focused on
the development of networks and markets, evaluation of technologies and standards or
support during the merger and acquisition process.

Detecon International GmbH

Oberkasselerstr. 2
53227 Bonn
Telefon: +49 228 700 0
E-Mail: info@detecon.com
Internet: www.detecon.com

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