Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) Quality Attributes - A Research Model

Abstract: Background: Many of the architectural discussions and proposals, currently being held and formulated at IBM, focus on service-oriented architecture (SOA). In fact, every other day, IBM employees receive mails containing SOA information. Having in mind that IBM is one of the leading consultant and software companies in the world, as well as considering that this architecture is said to be an improvement of EAI, the interest arose in conducting a research around a potential SOA Quality Evaluation Model. With this model it should be possible to gain an indication of the extent a SOA is contributing or limiting to business benefits, in comparison to an already existing architecture. For the research area the Swiss bank UBS was chosen, as they recently implemented a servicebased architecture. Aim: To create a SOA Quality Evaluation Model that is applicable to SOA implementations. Method: Based on secondary data, attributes that describe the quality features of SOAs were filtered out and to some extent gathered. These quality attributes were then combined with questions, to collect information about how employees, at the UBS, experience the difference between the old architecture and the newly implemented service-oriented architecture. Finally, the gathered results were weighted, presented and analyzed in the SOA Quality Evaluation Model. Conclusion: All attributes, except ‘Security’, ‘Efficiency’, ‘Reliability’ and ‘ROI’, indicate an improvement with the replacement of the old architecture and none of the 12 quality measurements show proof of deterioration. Moreover, nine out of the 12 attributes were regarded as critical for success. Hence, in general it can be assumed that these attributes have been in accordance with what can be expected from an architecture evaluation model at a bank like UBS.