Xebia Blog

The Top 10 SOA Pitfalls countdown hit #1 last week with Rik de Groot's post on "Ignoring culture when introducing SOA", time for a wrap-up.

Putting all pitfalls together in one simple 10 item list quickly reveals a grouping of types pitfalls. Number #1 and #2 are both related to organizational aspect. If the culture, mindset and attitude are not right, these are typically the pitfalls that a SOA endeavor may run in to. The next group covers the items #3 till #7, these are all related to architectural/design skills. And the last group, numbers #8 till #10, relates to implementation issues (although proper design could help to prevent these pitfalls from manifesting themselves).

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Filed under: Architecture, SOA
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Last week Vincent explained the BDUF Pitfall en this week we’ll continue with #4: Incorrectly applied Canonical Data Model (CDM).

CDM is one of the silver bullets often fired in SOA projects. It should address miscommunication, ease integration and reduce integration costs. It surely can facilitate all of this, but attempts to use a CDM can also turn your SOA project into an endless discussion because one attempts to cover too much, because of a lack of alignment with business and because of a lack of design principles.
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Filed under: Architecture, Java, Performance, SOA
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After discussing #8: Security, let's move on to #7.

Incorrect granularity could mean that a service covers too much functionality or too little functionality. Incorrect granularity of services in your SOA can lead to bad performance, low reuse possibilities, leaky abstractions and services without added business value. . Common causes for this are bottom-up and/or top-down design and taking a too narrow perspective (project instead of company scope). In this blog we’ll first take a closer look at the previously mentioned symptoms and their causes. And then we’ll explain why the solution lies in taking a business perspective when designing services.
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Filed under: Architecture, SOA
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Last week we went for a short ski trip to Les Arcs. Geeky as we are, we cannot survive without beer, gadgets and bit of Java. Availability of the first was not problem and to not loose contact with the other two I decided to play a bit with OpenGTS, a Treo650 and a wireless GPS receiver.

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Filed under: Java
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Last week I visited the TelemanagementWorld conference and with Andreas and John we did a session to explain why the Order Management API is perfect for converging environments like Telco, Cable, ISP, Mobile. The presentation can be downloaded from the TMForum web-site (session SYS33). But, because it is only accessible to TMForum members or a visitors of the conference, I'll provide a summary below.

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Filed under: Java, Telecommunications
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The Order Management API 1.0 has been released. The Order Management API is (as far as we in the JSR264 Expert Group (EG) know) the only open and standards based API available for order management and is relevant for any organization developing an order management solution. By using this API as a basis for your Order Management solution you can reuse the knowledge of others (not reinventing the wheel), reduce your integration costs and create a flexible Order Management solution.
In a previous blog post I already described the features of the API in detail, so I'll just repeat the most important features:

The JSR264 specification can be downloaded from the JCP website. The Reference Implementation (RI) and Technology Compatibility Kit (TCK) are available at the TelemanagementForum website. More information on JSR264 can be found at the JSR264 java.net site.

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Filed under: Agile, Java, Telecommunications
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In the previous episodes in this series we started from a high level Java in the Telecommunications industry, zoomed in on Telemanagement Forum and the basics of OSS/J, described the basics of the Order Management API and now we'll discuss why the Order Management API fits perfectly in an Service Oriented Architecture (SOA). Why is this a relevant question? Virtually any organization does with order management in one way or another and many organizations are currently evaluating or realizing SOAs. Reason enough to check if the Order Management API fits in an SOA.

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Filed under: Java, SOA, Telecommunications
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In the previous two episodes in this series we described the position of Java in the Telecommunications industry, Telemanagement Forum and the basics of OSS/J. This episode focuses on the Order Management API (JSR 264), this is one of the OSS/J APIs being developed using the JCP process (proposed final draft 2 will be released May/June '07). It is also the API we covered during last weeks session at JavaOne.

Order management is a common process and virtually every organization does some sort of order management to ensure that it can process requests from it's customers and deliver the requested product (for example book, car, drivers license) or service (for example telephony, health insurance, TV). The Order Management API is (as far as we know) the only open and standards based API available for order management and therefore is relevant for many organizations developing an order management solution (not telecommunications only). By using this API as a basis for your order management solution you can reuse the knowledge of others (not reinventing the wheel) and reduce your integration costs.

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Filed under: Java, Telecommunications
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As promised in the first post in this series, we'll now zoom in on the Telemanagement Forum (TMF) and OSS/J. This post will be a bit theoretical, but I promise that the next one will be more practical

Telemanagement Forum is an organization that strives to improve the interoperability in the Communication Service Provider (CSP) industry through its New Generation Operations Systems and Software (NGOSS) program. Members of the TMF are not only the telco's, but also network equipment vendors and system integrators. All of them provide input to the NGOSS program

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Filed under: Java, Telecommunications
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Why a blog on Java and telecommunications? There is no other industry for which the Java Community Process hosts so many specifications and I wonder if people are aware of this. Additionally, in May I'll be doing a session on both JavaOne and Telemanagement World conferences. A nice trigger for a series of blog postings that starts with an overview of where Java plays a role in the telecommunications industry and with each subsequent post zoom in on the subject of the sessions: OSS/J Order Management and SOA.

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Filed under: Java, Telecommunications
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