Adopting and Evaluating Service Oriented Architecture in Industry

In this paper, we present a descriptive case study covering the re-engineering and further evolution of adopting service oriented architecture (SOA) in industry. The goal of this case study is to identify the possible benefits and bottlenecks of adopting SOA, as well as to come up with best practices and research directions based on real-life experience gained in IT industry. The case involves an application portfolio of over 700 systems for a company in the transport sector. First, the case study involves the engineering of a portal application involving the integration of various services via the Enterprise Service Bus (ESB). Second, the case study is concerned with the setting up of a central coordination point within the organization to deal with SOA-related integration requests and requirements coming from different business units. Finally, the case discusses the actual implementation and integration of a service through the ESB. From this case study, a list of lessons learned and research directions is obtained.