08-16-2017, 09:24 PM
SOA and Cloud Computing are taking on more prominent roles in large organisations for the purpose of operational efficiency and cost reduction. These technologies have already left behind the status of emerging technologies to consolidate as mature and proven technologies. Clearly, a growing adoption of service-oriented architectures and cloud platforms is taking place in all segments of the market. However, little is said, in fact, as SOA and cloud computing are related. Are SOA and Cloud Computing approaches complementary to each other, or should they be used separately? This article will clarify how these technologies relate, beyond the advantages of adopting them together. But before considering having an IT solution that is based on SOA or cloud computing, we should conceptualise what they mean.
Cloud Computing provides a layer of abstraction between computing resources and their technical implementation details, such as their servers, databases and networks, while allowing computing resources to be used on demand while avoiding efforts in infrastructure management.In recent years, Cloud Computing is no longer a conceptual model and has become a model adopted by several organisations. Cloud Computing is a broad term that involves virtualisation, software, platform and infrastructure as an on-demand service.
Today, most large organisations still have their own IT infrastructures. However, with the various possibilities offered by cloud computing, this is no longer necessary. With the use of hardware and software resources on a large scale, suppliers are able to provide all the necessary processing power at a much lower cost than could be achieved by any organisation individually. In addition, especially in cases where the use of storage resources and processing vary, it is advisable to use Cloud Computing. This model has been defined as utility computing, which is delivered to users according to their needs. SOA is an architectural standard for the development of distributed systems that transform resources into software services. Benefits such as increased agility and cost savings are already clear to businesses around the world, and inevitably, SOA will be the dominant architecture in most large organisations. Adopting SOA today will improve how IT can meet your business in the future. SOA and Cloud Computing can exist separately - it does not depend on the other. However, they are complementary and can be very useful to each other.Cloud Computing provides a very flexible and scalable platform through the processing of external services, and not only offers such advantages as low cost, but also provides the ability to connect with customers, partners and suppliers, as never before.
However, without SOA, organisations face difficulties in using Cloud Computing due to the fact that applications do not have a solid architectural foundation. The complexity of migration to the cloud environment will be too great, both conceptually and physically. The high scalability of Cloud Computing faces the architecture of the application and the infrastructure available.To analyse the importance of SOA in the Cloud Computing environment, this document is organised into three topics. The first presents the characteristics and difficulties of Cloud Computing, with an evaluation of the main difficulties in the implementation of this approach. In the second theme, the presentation of the characteristics and benefits of SOA is explained, explaining the strengths that the adoption of this architecture brings to the company. Finally, the third theme shows the combination of these two technologies in obtaining a complete service solution.However, security, architecture, availability and standards are often not evaluated. Cloud consumers are at the mercy of the cloud provider. Scenarios that require changing cloud providers after a cloud provider breaks down, and the associated movement of data and / or applications, have not yet been sufficiently tested. Business continuity must play a key role since the beginning of a cloud assessment process.