I already mentioned that I’m currently writing my “Diplomarbeit”, a Service-Oriented-Architecture-Oriented-Diplom-Arbeit (SOAODA) to be more precise.
The exact title is “Design and Implementation of a Service-oriented Information System Architecture Based on a Case Study” (Konzeption und Realisierung einer service-orientierten IS-Architektur anhand eines Fallbeispiels). As the Case Study will be based on SAP concepts and NetWeaver technology, the thesis basically divides into four main parts:

• Explanation of vendor-neutral SOA fundamentals.
• SAP’s view on SOA, i.e. enterprise services architecture (ESA) - or enterprise SOA (ESOA) as it is officially called since May.
• Procedure for designing and implementing SOA.
• Designing and Implementing a little scenario - in fact it’s a mini-composite application using web services, guided procedures, visual composer and CAF core.

So the topic is really broad, but as SOA is generally discussed very diverse (starting from a business concept to pure technology) it was most interesting for me to get an overview and not to focus too much on one certain aspect. Of course their are tons of information currently flying around and it is hard to filter because every IT-oriented author, magazine and company seems to have something to say about but explanations/promises are often vague and terms are differently used and defined. University studies on SOA and related topics, however, are still quite rare.

Already today I’m curious to see my list of abbreviations at the end (SOA, SOE, SOAD, ESOA, ESA, ESB, EAI, ERP, SAP, CAF, ……….).

I read that standardization of semantics (for example business objects and services) is helpful for achiving a valuable SOA. What about standardization of semantics for all those SOA-related terms?? At least for me THIS would be helpful. As it seems today, probably nobody can be assured that two people talking about SOA or an ESB are actually talking about the same.

I opened two categories - one called SOA and the other one SAP enterprise SOA. The first one is for SOA in general, the second one may contain more SAP related information.

(Anybody interested in my work may leave me a message or send me an e-mail and I will inform him when the thesis is available.)

Categories: SOA, SAP enterprise SOA