Service Oriented Architecture

Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) is a vendor-neutral strategy that enables IT to more effectively support business activities.

 KAZ has the expertise to overcome the three hurdles in an effective SOA deployment

• Performance
  
  XML data is large and resource intensive to process, which can cause application latency and user frustration. XML processing also ties up computing resources, increasing expenditure on servers, licensing and maintenance.

• Security
  
  SOA opens up corporate information across departments, business units, partners and customers. This poses a considerable danger since XML tools aren’t typically security-hardened. Governing access to information and applications is also vital.

• Integration
  
  Connecting legacy systems to new workflows and applications can be hard to code and maintain across multiple vendor environments. These integrations can also be needlessly expensive.

Successful integration is about business process as well as technology.  Balancing the business objectives and technical opportunities is the key element of successful SOA and successful integration. 

• Simplified messaging and services architecture design lets you focus on business results rather than technology issues
• Specific messaging technologies can be implemented with more reliable results
• ESB implementations are carried out more rapidly and with less risk
• Potentially cheaper, faster and more future-proof XML and XSL design

SOA lets you select discrete functions contained within software applications and connect them to business processes. This is achieved through standard interfaces that allow information to be accessed and used across diverse platforms, applications and devices. SOA can open up the functions locked inside legacy applications and link them to new functions when needed. These new, composite applications closely align with workflows and minimise the need to log onto multiple systems, search for information or integrate the results manually. SOA offers compelling advantages:

• Increased agility: The ability to easily add new functions enables IT systems to rapidly adapt to business change
• Improved productivity: Workflows are automated as previously isolated applications are made available to staff, suppliers, partners and customers.
• Lower cost: Existing IT assets can be re-used, reducing the need to invest in new applications
• Lower risk: Applications are loosely coupled, not hardwired together, so new functions can be added to one without causing a major redesign of others
• Faster return on investment: Adding new functions incrementally lets you realise the business benefits of each project sooner
• Better decision making: Integrating applications and information gives business leaders a better view of enterprise workflows

KAZ offers extensive SOA design capabilities coupled with expertise in multiple products and technologies.  Our services help you address the key issues of SOA:

KAZ can analyse your current application performance, identify where it can be improved and help to reduce costs. Our capabilities include:

• Performance assessment of applications including capacity planning
• Performance simulation of applications and technologies and assisting with technology choice
• Network optimisation of applications – tuning the software infrastructure to reduce costs by optimising HTML, CSS, managing caching and XML usage and other capacity issues
• Service Level Monitoring

KAZ provides a range of services for risk assessment, software implementation and application security. These include:

• Integration with the security environment – integrates bespoke and packaged applications with directories and provides authentication for applications and services. Extracting or modifying authorisation logic from applications and moving it into infrastructure can be a major part of this procedure
• Identity Management - consulting, consolidation, implementation and product selection
• Single Sign On selection and configuration

KAZ has strong integration capabilities, including ESB and messaging. These include:

• Expertise in architectural patterns for messaging and service integration
• ESB implementation skills
• Messaging interface design and implementation
• Integrating software of various types
• Service design and management