How do you architect an SOA solution to ensure that it is driven by the business and can respond rapidly and efficiently to ever changing business requirements? A Model Driven Development (MDD) approach can help provide that level of agility. The goal with the MDD approach to SOA is to auto-generate service artifacts such as WSDL, XSD, SCA composites, and BPEL code from the service model.
First, the business articulates their vision for the SOA project in requirements documents or in the form of use cases. Business analysts (BAs) then model business processes that realize the use cases by leveraging the Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN). With the help of the right tools, the BAs can specify Key Performance Indicators (KPI) such as those required by service level agreements (SLAs). They can also run simulations to validate the proposed business processes.
SOA is indeed all about reengineering and supporting organizational business processes. Back in 1993, Michael Hammer and James Champy made the case and outlined the management framework for reengineering in their book entitled "Reengineering the Corporation: A Manifesto for Business Revolution". Today, SOA is the software architecture that enables and facilitates the reengineering of business processes.
BPMN is an effective tool for BAs (as opposed to UML) because they should only focus on the business and operational aspects of the business process and shouldn’t have to worry about IT concerns such as service loose coupling, reusability, reliability, security, persistence, and transactions. While direct transformation from BPMN to executable BPEL code (so called BPMN-BPEL round tripping) may be effective for simple business processes, it can not always satisfy those IT concerns. More complex business processes will require advanced modeling and coding by SOA architects and developers.
For example, the SOA architect will have to decompose the proposed business process into task, entity, and utility service layers in order to satisfy the SOA principles of loose coupling, reusability, and composability. That will also give the SOA Architect opportunity to apply SOA design principles and patterns and check the enterprise SOA Repository or Registry to reuse existing services or legacy assets.
After decomposing the proposed business process to identify reuse opportunities and address other IT concerns, the SOA architect can then build an assembly of service components based on the Service Component Architecture (SCA). SCA implementation types can be Spring beans, EJBs, C++, Cobol, WS-BPEL, PHP, Spring, XSLT, XQuery, and OSGi bundles. SCA supports different bindings such as SOAP/HTTP Web services, JMS, RSS, and Atom.
The tool of choice for software architects is UML 2.0. In the case of SOA, UML can help abstract the service model from technology-specific implementation details. Basic UML artifacts such as activity and collaboration diagrams can be auto-generated from the BPMN diagrams produced by the BAs to bootstrap the SOA Architect's modeling effort.
To help SOA architects in crafting service-oriented solution logic, a UML Profile for service-oriented design should be adopted. The profile should define a number of stereotypes that can be applied to UML artifacts in order to refine the transformation from UML artifacts to service artifacts.
The automatic generation of the service artifacts from the UML model should be part of the build and continuous integration process which should also include automated tests (for example to ensure that the generated XSD and WSDL are syntactically correct, WSI-BP compliant, and backward compatible).
The benefits of an MDD approach to crafting SOA solutions include: increased development productivity, traceability to business requirements, responsiveness to changing requirements, quality, and overall agility.
Saturday, July 26, 2008
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
SOA in the Java Space: State of the Union
In the Java space, an SOA Architect starting a new SOA project will have to make some strategic as well as tactical decisions regarding which approach and technologies are appropriate for their project. Of course, the SOA project should be aligned with the organization’s long term business goals.
Technically, there is a myriad of specifications to choose from:
Each of these specifications has its raison d’etre and should be part of the architect’s toolkit. However, I find SCA quite intriguing. SCA defines a language neutral programming model for the assembly and deployment of services. SCA implementation types include Java, C++, Cobol, WS-BPEL, PHP, Spring, XSLT, XQuery, and OSGi bundles. SCA supports different bindings such as SOAP/HTTP Web services, JMS, RSS, and Atom. SCA applications can be hosted in web containers, application servers, and OSGi runtimes. SCA is geared toward the developer and can apply policies such as reliability, security, and transactions to services in a declarative manner. SCA has the support of big players including Oracle, SAP, and IBM. At the time of this writing, Sun Microsystems support for SCA is less than clear (to me anyway).
JBI is implemented by a number of Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) products. JBI defines a runtime architecture that allows plugins such as binding components and service engines to interoperate via a Normalized Message Router (NMR). Binding components (BCs) use communication protocols such as JMS, FTP, XMPP, and HTTP/S to connect external services to the JBI environment. Service engines provide application logic in the JBI environment. Examples of SEs are XSLT/XQuery data transformation engines, rules engines, and WS-BPEL engines. BCs and SEs do not communicate directly. They only communicate through the NMR. IBM, BEA (now part of Oracle) and SAP did not vote in favor of JBI Java Specification Request (JSR 208).
When starting a new SOA project, SOA architects will have to look beyond vendors politics and make some judgment calls about the best approach based on their business goals and functional requirements.
My personal take on this is to adopt an agile approach where new functionalities are implemented in an iterative manner. For example, instead of starting with an ESB infrastructure, a project can start by service enabling existing applications (code-first approach) with JAX-WS annotation capabilities or by creating new services with a contract-first approach where JAX-WS annotated service and server stub are generated from a WSDL. Alternatively, the Java API for RESTfulWeb Services (WS-RS) could be used when a RESTful approach seems more appropriate.
An ESB could later come into the picture in a context where you are connecting to multiple services (often across organizational boundaries) and there is a need for mediation services such as business process orchestration, business rules processing, data model transformation, message routing, and protocol bridging. In that context, JBI provides plug-and-play functionality in ESBs for service engines such as business rules engines and BPEL engines. For that reason, JBI can help avoid ESB vendor lockin (perhaps a reason why proprietary ESB vendors are not backing JBI).
However, SOA architects should carefully consider the benefits of the programming language and binding agnostic service assembly model proposed by SCA. This will be essentially a choice between centralized mediation and decentralized assembly. The Open Service Oriented Architecture (OSOA) group believes that JBI and SCA can actually work together for example to allow SCA components to call JBI components or to use JBI runtime containers to deploy SCA composites.
Decentralized assembly is agile and looks a lot more like the way the web itself works. So I believe that while the JBI model is fine for integrating legacy enterprise applications, new and future service-oriented applications will embrace the SCA approach.
So is the state of the union strong? There is certainly a risk of fragmentation. But choice will always drive innovation forward and that’s what attracts me to the Java platform in the first place.
Technically, there is a myriad of specifications to choose from:
- The Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN)
- The Java API for XML Web Services (JAX-WS)
- The WS-* specifications including the WS-I Basic Profile, WS-Addressing, WS-Policy, WS-Reliable Messaging, and WS-Security
- The Java API for RESTful Web Services (JAX-RS)
- The Java Business Integration (JBI)
- The Web Services Business Process Execution Language (WS-BPEL)
- The Service Component Architecture (SCA).
Each of these specifications has its raison d’etre and should be part of the architect’s toolkit. However, I find SCA quite intriguing. SCA defines a language neutral programming model for the assembly and deployment of services. SCA implementation types include Java, C++, Cobol, WS-BPEL, PHP, Spring, XSLT, XQuery, and OSGi bundles. SCA supports different bindings such as SOAP/HTTP Web services, JMS, RSS, and Atom. SCA applications can be hosted in web containers, application servers, and OSGi runtimes. SCA is geared toward the developer and can apply policies such as reliability, security, and transactions to services in a declarative manner. SCA has the support of big players including Oracle, SAP, and IBM. At the time of this writing, Sun Microsystems support for SCA is less than clear (to me anyway).
JBI is implemented by a number of Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) products. JBI defines a runtime architecture that allows plugins such as binding components and service engines to interoperate via a Normalized Message Router (NMR). Binding components (BCs) use communication protocols such as JMS, FTP, XMPP, and HTTP/S to connect external services to the JBI environment. Service engines provide application logic in the JBI environment. Examples of SEs are XSLT/XQuery data transformation engines, rules engines, and WS-BPEL engines. BCs and SEs do not communicate directly. They only communicate through the NMR. IBM, BEA (now part of Oracle) and SAP did not vote in favor of JBI Java Specification Request (JSR 208).
When starting a new SOA project, SOA architects will have to look beyond vendors politics and make some judgment calls about the best approach based on their business goals and functional requirements.
My personal take on this is to adopt an agile approach where new functionalities are implemented in an iterative manner. For example, instead of starting with an ESB infrastructure, a project can start by service enabling existing applications (code-first approach) with JAX-WS annotation capabilities or by creating new services with a contract-first approach where JAX-WS annotated service and server stub are generated from a WSDL. Alternatively, the Java API for RESTfulWeb Services (WS-RS) could be used when a RESTful approach seems more appropriate.
An ESB could later come into the picture in a context where you are connecting to multiple services (often across organizational boundaries) and there is a need for mediation services such as business process orchestration, business rules processing, data model transformation, message routing, and protocol bridging. In that context, JBI provides plug-and-play functionality in ESBs for service engines such as business rules engines and BPEL engines. For that reason, JBI can help avoid ESB vendor lockin (perhaps a reason why proprietary ESB vendors are not backing JBI).
However, SOA architects should carefully consider the benefits of the programming language and binding agnostic service assembly model proposed by SCA. This will be essentially a choice between centralized mediation and decentralized assembly. The Open Service Oriented Architecture (OSOA) group believes that JBI and SCA can actually work together for example to allow SCA components to call JBI components or to use JBI runtime containers to deploy SCA composites.
Decentralized assembly is agile and looks a lot more like the way the web itself works. So I believe that while the JBI model is fine for integrating legacy enterprise applications, new and future service-oriented applications will embrace the SCA approach.
So is the state of the union strong? There is certainly a risk of fragmentation. But choice will always drive innovation forward and that’s what attracts me to the Java platform in the first place.
Friday, July 4, 2008
XML Schema Design Strategies for SOA Projects
The schema modeling and design effort should be an integrated part of an agile approach which implements practices such as user stories, acceptance tests, unit test first, refactoring, short iterations, common code base, and continuous integration.
In the recommended contract-first approach to web services development, the XML Schema and WSDL artifacts are the foundation of an SOA project. For example, with Apache CXF, you can use the WSDL2Java tool to automatically generate a JAX-WS annotated service and server stub from your WSDL.
The first step is to adopt schema naming and design rules (NDR). Industry and government standard bodies like the Universal Business Language (UBL) and the National Information Exchange Model (NIEM) have published such NDRs.
If you’re building a new schema from scratch, then the schema should be designed in an iterative and collaborative manner. During each iteration, add just enough components to your schema to support the specific user stories that are being implemented. As the schema grows, refactor as required.
One option is to start the modeling effort with a domain model in the form of UML class diagrams to facilitate collaboration between non-technical subject matter experts (SMEs), the modeler, and the technical team. An XML schema can then be generated automatically from the UML class diagram with a tool such as Hypermodel. David Carlson, creator of Hypermodel, proposed a UML Profile for XSDs which defined a number of stereotypes that can be added to UML class diagrams to refine the mapping from class diagrams to XML schemas. Alternatively, you could export the UML model to the XML Metadata Interchange (XMI) format and use an XSLT transform to map the XMI into an XML Schema and even an XML instance. This Model Driven Development (MDD) approach to XSD provides agility in the face of constant changes in business requirements.
If you are reusing an industry or government schema such as UBL or NIEM, it is very important to use the right methodology for extending the schema as recommended by the applicable NDR or Information Exchange Package Documentation (IEPD) process in the case of NIEM. Extensions to the standard schema should be clearly defined in a new custom namespace and documented properly. The following are some strategies for extending an XML schema:
The schema should be tested for quality against the NDRs. The US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has published an XML Schema Quality of Design Tool (or QoD Tool) which combines Schematron and JESS rules (a Java-based open source rule engine) to validate schemas against NDRs.
For unit testing, the XMLUnit framework can be helpful in testing the schema as you refactor and implement new user stories. XMLUnit for Java allows you to make assertions about the validity of an XML document against an XML Schema. The execution of these tests should be part of your build and continuous integration process.
The automatic generation of the XSD code from the UML model should also be part of the build and continuous integration process.
Business rules or modeling requirements that are beyond the capabilities of XML Schema 1.0 should be implemented with an assertion-based language such as ISO Schematron or with the new assertion and conditional type assignment (co-constraints) capabilities in XML Schema 1.1.
Although ISO Schematron and XML Schema 1.1 can be quite powerful when used with XPath 2.0, some complex business rules will be easier to handle with rule engines such as JBoss Drools and JESS. The rule engine can be deployed as a dedicated and reusable utility web service to validate messages.
When modeling XML schemas for an SOA project, careful consideration should be given to the issue of data transformations. When the services don’t share the same data model and XML Schema, there is a need to transform the XML data using technologies such as XQuery and XSLT. This can introduce additional design complexity and runtime performance issues. Data transformations shall be avoided unless absolutely required.
The XML Schema's xsd:appinfo element can be used to capture and keep metadata close to the XSD declarations:
Finally, to maximize reuse, an enterprise-wide SOA Repository/Registry should be used to publish, centralize, and discover schema components (see my previous post on SOA Governance tools).
In the recommended contract-first approach to web services development, the XML Schema and WSDL artifacts are the foundation of an SOA project. For example, with Apache CXF, you can use the WSDL2Java tool to automatically generate a JAX-WS annotated service and server stub from your WSDL.
The first step is to adopt schema naming and design rules (NDR). Industry and government standard bodies like the Universal Business Language (UBL) and the National Information Exchange Model (NIEM) have published such NDRs.
If you’re building a new schema from scratch, then the schema should be designed in an iterative and collaborative manner. During each iteration, add just enough components to your schema to support the specific user stories that are being implemented. As the schema grows, refactor as required.
One option is to start the modeling effort with a domain model in the form of UML class diagrams to facilitate collaboration between non-technical subject matter experts (SMEs), the modeler, and the technical team. An XML schema can then be generated automatically from the UML class diagram with a tool such as Hypermodel. David Carlson, creator of Hypermodel, proposed a UML Profile for XSDs which defined a number of stereotypes that can be added to UML class diagrams to refine the mapping from class diagrams to XML schemas. Alternatively, you could export the UML model to the XML Metadata Interchange (XMI) format and use an XSLT transform to map the XMI into an XML Schema and even an XML instance. This Model Driven Development (MDD) approach to XSD provides agility in the face of constant changes in business requirements.
If you are reusing an industry or government schema such as UBL or NIEM, it is very important to use the right methodology for extending the schema as recommended by the applicable NDR or Information Exchange Package Documentation (IEPD) process in the case of NIEM. Extensions to the standard schema should be clearly defined in a new custom namespace and documented properly. The following are some strategies for extending an XML schema:
- Wildcards xs:any and xs:anyAttribute
- Element substitution and abstract elements
- Type substitution via xsi:type and abstract types
- Concrete Extension (creating a new type by extending an existing type to include additional local elements).
The schema should be tested for quality against the NDRs. The US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has published an XML Schema Quality of Design Tool (or QoD Tool) which combines Schematron and JESS rules (a Java-based open source rule engine) to validate schemas against NDRs.
For unit testing, the XMLUnit framework can be helpful in testing the schema as you refactor and implement new user stories. XMLUnit for Java allows you to make assertions about the validity of an XML document against an XML Schema. The execution of these tests should be part of your build and continuous integration process.
The automatic generation of the XSD code from the UML model should also be part of the build and continuous integration process.
Business rules or modeling requirements that are beyond the capabilities of XML Schema 1.0 should be implemented with an assertion-based language such as ISO Schematron or with the new assertion and conditional type assignment (co-constraints) capabilities in XML Schema 1.1.
Although ISO Schematron and XML Schema 1.1 can be quite powerful when used with XPath 2.0, some complex business rules will be easier to handle with rule engines such as JBoss Drools and JESS. The rule engine can be deployed as a dedicated and reusable utility web service to validate messages.
When modeling XML schemas for an SOA project, careful consideration should be given to the issue of data transformations. When the services don’t share the same data model and XML Schema, there is a need to transform the XML data using technologies such as XQuery and XSLT. This can introduce additional design complexity and runtime performance issues. Data transformations shall be avoided unless absolutely required.
The XML Schema's xsd:appinfo element can be used to capture and keep metadata close to the XSD declarations:
- Metadata such as data transformation specifications
- Business rules using inline ISO Schematron rules
- Labels, alerts, and appearances of UI components such as XForms controls. This provides the opportunity to auto-generate UI components from your XSD using a transformation language like XSLT or XQuery. Keeping UI and XSD components in sync can be a challenge in SOA projects.
Finally, to maximize reuse, an enterprise-wide SOA Repository/Registry should be used to publish, centralize, and discover schema components (see my previous post on SOA Governance tools).
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