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Tag Archives: SOAP

Challenges for the Citizen Integrator

02 Saturday Apr 2016

Posted by mp3monster in General, Oracle, Technology

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apiary, apiary.io, Boomerang, Citizen Integrator, Cloud, mockable, mockable.io, mocking, OIC - ICS, Oracle, REST, SOAP, SoapUI, testing, WSDL

cloudgs_integrationWe’ve been developing the example integrations to go with book on ICS and have encountered some interesting challenges for the Citizen Integrator (CI) when using an iPaaS (integration Platform as a Service). To say it in non techno speak  someone wanting to plumb system together without needing to be equipped and have the skills of a developer and just using the cloud. One such example is SOAP API testing, before connecting live systems together even a CI will probably want to check that you have mapped the data correctly – important when you’ve potentially got functions and repeating structures in the mapping. To go back to my old analogy that tools for a CI like ICS are the same as Excel to ERP. Then like when creating formulas in a spreadsheet you’re going to plumb in some numbers and check the formula’s results before using in anger.boomerang2b1366

So far so obvious, the fun comes not when you’re wanting to simulate the source event coming into the tool – this can be done through a raft of utilities from Chrome Browser extensions such as Boomerang, soapui_logoSoapUI for example. Things become a lot more challenging when   comes when you want the integration output to go to a mock SOAP API.   The choices available are limited, and pretty much come down to:

  • If you’re lucky you might be able to connect to a test instance of the target service. SalesForce offers a sandbox instance for example to those with a production instance of SalesForce.
  • However sandbox/test instances are less likely for ‘in house’ solutions or products offered as an on premise solution unless there happens to be active development on the solution taking place.screenshot_48
  • Ideally a mocking tool is the route to go – but only 1 option in this space appears to be available for SOAP called mockable.io
  • Other than mockable you’re into using locally installed software and things get messy as it means getting the outbound web traffic routed to your own machine and then use something like MockServer (there is a great article about this tool by my book co-author Robert van Molken here). The chances are unless the network & security manager(s) are good friends or you like messing with your home network it isn’t going to happen.
  • The final option is instantiating an IaaS platform such as Amazon (AWS Free Developer intro scheme to keep your cost down) or perhaps Oracle IaaS, although I’d suggest this is a fairly expensive route to enable the testing of an integration, not to mention the effort to setup things to run the test.

With REST services things are somewhat easier, as there is a lot more tools geared to helping the design of APIs, testing them and critically providing a proxy based framework 65f3fc0eadfae8135439b4ff48f63fd4to enable monetisation. For example Apiary.io can create a test harness for you. Others such as Apigee, also offer such abilities. Apiary offers a trial account and we’ll be hearing a lot more about Apiary in the near future. There is a possible work around, which is to create test integrations that  map the SOAP content into a REST service (Apigee offers such a capability) but with certain constraints you could also do this within ICS itself. But we’ll look at such options within the book (can’t go without to money shot 😀 ).

This of course has only looked at the conventional use of SOAP, if you need to work with a SOAP interface that makes use of the more advanced WS-* extensions such as Reliable Messaging then things come pretty serious, and I’m afraid today you’re going to need to resort to development, and I suspect you’ll not escape that in the future either.

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Introducing Canonical Models into a Web Service’d Environment

07 Saturday Jun 2014

Posted by mp3monster in General, Technology

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Canonical, data, REST, slides, SOAP, Web Service, Web Services, WSDL

I’ve produced my own slide deck on how to adopt canonical data models into an environment that already exists using Web Services and used Slide Share for the 1st time to make a slide deck available.  I hope you find it interesting

 

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True SOA and the Organisation

28 Wednesday May 2014

Posted by mp3monster in General, Technology

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HTTP, organisation, project, RPC, Service Orientated Architecture, SOA, SOAP, Thomas Erl, WSDL

SOA has become probably one of the most used and abused terms in IT in the last decade from assuming that implementing RPC over HTTP (rather than true REST) to the adoption of SOAP and WSDL equates to SOA, but this has been greatly written about. If you read texts such as the tombs from Thomas Erl & co (they are very substantial books and require a strong book case) then you will appreciate the goal to align services to more business centric thinking.

The point I wanted to really home in on is not the business process thinking but actually the organisational challenges of realising SOA. In software houses or end user businesses design and development is aligned to projects or a proxy to that such as a product release. Understandable given the wealth of experience both technical and non-technical for managing projects. But projects line up behind delivering specific goals. In an organisation that is particularly delivery or time aggressive (some might say entrepreneurial) this project drive can, and istypically at the expensive of the wider software ecosystem. Building proper services requires input beyond the singular goal of a project in most cases.

This organisation and possibly cultural consideration is where most SOA texts don’t go, but probably where most help is needed to effect true SOA.  Why do I say this, well consider statistics around failed projects, the amount of up front investment SOA demands – getting a handle on design patterns and technology is managable, but how do you know that the organisation and non technical aspects are not distorting or undermining your ability to deliver SOA properly.

From my personal experience I can see several things that can help (but not certainty) achieve the goal, namely:

  • management at all levels who recognise the benefits of SOA and particularly the upfront investment in time (and delivery impact) and are prepared to allow projects to factor this into their goals
  • architects have the authority and tools to design in a style but also the ability to define the potential value of SOA, this has to be tempered with pragmatism  (this means that the architects need to be highly collaborative and cohesive as a function if not a team)
  • design governance to support the process – with the teeth to impact a project

But this is an approach is likely to create tensions between the project and its pressures and the desire to achieve a SOA goals. The question is can an alternate organisational model exist which allows for a more effective realisation of SOA ideals without the tensions as the stronger the personalities involved between architecture and project pulling to meet their goal.

It is worth also considering the additional complexity that offshoring the implementation can add in terms of organisational challenge; as an offshore 3rd party’s focus is revenue within in an engagement (offshore vendors aren’t charieties they need to make a profit as well) so they will work to be as efficient as possible; and not likely to be focused on your total SOA ecosystem of services  (they may not even see the big picture you’re seeking to achieve) so building appropriate layers of decoupling and abstraction are not likely to be in their natural interests unless such sensitivities are built into the agreement and backed up by governance with appropriate levels of impact (which could be as extreme as rejecting the solution as it doesn’t match the service designs identified).

Further in some organisations the challenge can run deeper beyond IT and into the sponsoring side of the business. Let me illustrate this, organisations are ultimately broken into functions who can look at systems as belonging to a specific function ie system A is for marketing, that system B for eCommerce and so on. With that kind of system thinking and each department driving against its own goals (sounds like a project again) the overlap of services against software products is going to be challenging. For example services such as a service for ‘Customer’  information is likely to cross software solutions such as CRM (Marketing) and eCommerce can be subject to different demands as the different parts of the organisation pull in their desireddirection resulting in potential clashes (and likely blame IT for the issues that arise).

One of the few diagrams that makes reference to organisation in the context of SOA

So what is the answer? I can only offer up my experiences above, point to the fact that some organisations perhaps just are not ready for realising true SOA. I would certainly love to read a SOA book that approaches the question not from a technology perspective but that of a organisational and process view point.

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