SOA stands for Service Oriented Architecture. In simple words, it is a framework consists of different services which communicate with each other over the network independently following a set of protocols. A service can be defined as a self-contained part of the functionality, and the combination of the several services can together provide usage and functionality of a software application on a large scale. The SOA framework makes it easier for the software parts on personal computers which are connected to a network to interact and cooperate. The design pattern of SOA is created in such a way that the components of the application in it can deliver services to other such components frequently over a network.In the network, each and every computer system is capable to run any number of services which are basically built to exchange information with another different service over a network without any manual help from a human being.

 

Properties of Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA):

Below diagram shows 4 main properties of SOA. Let’s discuss them in detail.

 

Service-Oriented Architecture:

1. People: these are the major decision makers. Here, people refer to all the higher management employees of the organization who take all the business related decisions.
2. Process: SOA saves money and time by aligning all the IT processes with business operations.
3. Practice: once the processes are in place, implementation takes place. All of the best practices are employed and followed.
4. Platform: The platform is chosen in such a way that it suits the best on above process and practice in order to increases the operational efficiency.

Principles of SOA

The Main Principles of SOA:

The following are the main principles of SOA.

• Service architecture – It is the physical layout or design of individual services that exceed all the resources which were used by a service.
• Service composition architecture – It represents the main features of all the services developed using service-oriented design methods which are configuration centric. Therefore, it is nothing but the composition of individual architectures of various services.
• Service inventory architecture – As the name suggests, it is formed from the service inventory blueprint. The service inventory is composed of the services which automate the procedures of businesses.
• Service-oriented enterprise architecture – It is a type of architecture which constitutes of composition, service as well as the inventory architectures.

Evolution of SOA Concept:

Below is the summary of the evolution of SOA concept. SOA concept is evolved in the following iterations.

• Monolithic design – It is the design which was related to relatively amorphous procedural coding.
• Object and structure oriented design – It is the design which includes the various program units which are based on functionalities.
• Client-server design (two-tier design) – Client-server design is the distributed design concept which refers to the bundling of functionalities into two tiers. Therefore, it is also known as two-tier design.
• Distributed object design (multi tier design) – It is the design which includes object interactions in a various environment and distributed object design.
• Component object model architecture – It is a design where an aggregation of items into logic based parts takes Each of item has a strongly types as well as a well-defined interface.
• Service oriented architecture – It is a design which includes interactions and communications between various coarse-grained services with the help of standard interfaces for flexible interoperations.

SOA Testing:

SOA Testing is nothing but the actual testing of the Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) which is an architectural style where the application components are designed to communicate as services through communication protocols typically over a network.

So far in this article, we have discussed the SOA (service-oriented architecture) properties, principles, and evolution of SOA concept. We can ensure quality in designing SOA concept by including testing with each of the evolution phase of SOA design concept. SOA testing will make sure that for each phase, we are achieving a required maturity level of design as desired which will ultimately result in a quality product as intended through SOA methodology. Like any traditional testing, we can create the test cases, tests design, etc. for each of the design phases and test these design phases as per the planned test cases.SOA Testing mainly focus on the following three system layers.

• Services layer –Service layer contains the services which are exposed by system derived from business functions. E.g., Consider an online library Website which consists of available book stacker, author wise books tracker, etc. These trackers will display the required book data, the books availability and the date when the books will be in stock. Services layer contains the services which receive the required data from the library database.
• Process layer –Process Layer contains the processes which are the collection of services as a part of a single functionality. The process could be a part of user interface, an ETL tool, etc. The user interface and associated process are the main focus of this layer. Considering Online library website example, the search form, add new book form, allocation form, and login services come under the test scope of the process layer.
• Consumer layer –Consumer layer mainly consists of user interfaces. It is the GUI through which user can interact following a process to fetch the required data from the service e.g. online library web service.

Business advantages of SOA:

Once, we have made sure on the SOA procedure and its quality through SOA testing then we may fetch the following business advantages.

• Accessibility—SOA ensures the data accessibility and vows to deliver data and collaboration capabilities to the workers through PCs, portals, mobile devices or composite applications, irrespective of the physical data location.
• Agility—SOA ensures to create a flexible SOA Foundation which is capable to support quick and cost-effective business strategy changes as it is capable to separate business processes from the technology.
• Analysis—SOA enables the rapid decision through the analysis of business leader’s real-time, mission-critical business intelligence, backed by analytics, dashboards, reporting tools and mobile delivery.
• Efficiency— SOA can be applied to combine, modernize and eliminate aged applications. Not only this, it can embrace applications, infrastructure, and platforms based in the cloud.
• Value—SOA connects the old technology to the new technology investments, as well as mashups, social media, the cloud in a secure, controlled and cost-effective way. In this way, it adds value to the business.

Conclusion:

In this article, we discussed service oriented architecture (SOA) and the associated testing for services, process, and consumer layers.
Also learned about Business advantages of Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA), Evolution of SOA Concept, the main principles of SOA, Service-Oriented Architecture, and properties of SOA.

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Happy Testing!!!