Process Integrity: Foundation for SOA Successby Amy Larsen DeCarlo

SOA’s appeal is undeniable: A service-oriented architecture can supply the foundation for an abundance of business benefits, from component reuse to effective process automation and accelerated time to market. What’s easy to overlook, though, is the need for process integrity in an SOA environment in which applications often extend beyond the enterprise to connect to partner and customer applications across the supply chain.

Any business implementing SOA-based applications needs to make sure it creates an environment in which process integrity is built in. Process integrity means ensuring that all underlying transactions execute correctly using dependable data. Without process integrity in an SOA environment, there is no way to establish and maintain stable corporate operations. If transactions aren’t synchronized throughout a supply chain in a SOA application environment, for example, inaccurate inventory data can lead to incorrect orders, which in turn could result in a shortage (or an expensive surplus) of goods.

So how can a business achieve process integrity in SOA environments? At the highest level, achieving process integrity requires synchronization of the applications, data, and human elements that underpin all processes running in the SOA environment. At a deeper level, process integrity requires that transaction instructions are carried out completely and accurately in order to keep processes firing and to support data integrity.

This feat can be a challenge in SOA environments, where applications are typically highly distributed, asynchronous and not isolated from other applications. There isn’t a single fix that will eradicate all possible problems; but there are some important steps an organization can take to ensure SOA reliability. First, any SOA environment should be built from a solid foundation that promises consistency across resources. SOA management tools should be able to detect problems and resynchronize data in the event of a system or subsystem service interruption or other error. The tools should also provide for the automated recovery of data that may be lost during a total outage at any stage of a transaction whether the transaction failure is at the service bus, database, or server.

The reality is that process integrity starts with vendor selection. For example, IBM builds support for process integrity into each of the services layer of its SOA environment. Each layer plays a part in creating harmony across all resources in SOA environments. So, for example, to guarantee that service calls passing through the enterprise service bus (ESB) are consistent and reliable, messaging and brokering software saves these messages in the event the message server fails. In the event a message server suffers an outage, IBM WebSphere Message Broker communicates with WebSphere MQ, IBM’s messaging middleware, to save the message until the preferred server is available again.

At the database level, system administrators need to have a mechanism to establish and execute on rules that guarantee any updates are carried out accurately by enforcing instruction, such as making sure a value in a specific field which denotes the salary level of a specific staff position is always within a set range. Mechanisms that restore data to its previous state in the event a transaction is disrupted before it completes are also crucial. In an IBM environment, DB2 software returns the information to its prior state if an outage occurs during a transaction.

Even at the hardware layer, organizations need to support consistent and reliable processes through failover and other inherent redundancies. IBM incorporates capabilities such as integrated component failover and logical partitioning for process sharing in products such as its System p platform.

Process integrity exists only in an environment where information integrity, transaction integrity, and the integrity associated with any interactions handled by personnel are priorities. Vendors such as IBM support this concept by working to ensure that process integrity is enabled across all business process and service layers in the SOA environment.

Process integrity guarantees the kind of reliable, secure, and efficient environment that promises to support greater business agility, and ultimately will lead to the kind of customer loyalty that will produce the biggest dividends.

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Archive of Articles by Amy Larsen DeCarlo

2009
Applying a Role-Based Approach to Business Process Management » Read article