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B2B Integration based on SOA using Web Service
Wiranto Herry Utomo
Faculty of Information Technology Satya Wacana Christian University
Jl. Diponegoro 52-60
ABSTRACT
The purpose of this research are 1 build a new method of SOA- based integration by combining SOAD and MDA, 2 validate
the new method by testing the applicability of the SOA-based integration eShop applications using Web Service, Enterprise
Service Bus, and Business Process Execution Language.
The results of this research are a new method of SOA-based integration that results of MDA, SOAD and OOAD combined.
This new method has been successfully used to perform analysis, design and implement of SOA-based integration with
results 6 business process, 18 Web Services, and 6 composite applications.
Keywords
SOA, Web Services, BPEL, Enterprise Service Bus, MDA.
1. INTRODUCTION
Business system usually develops in a different speed from information system. Gradually, it creates problem in the
synchronization of business and information system. It will lead to the application of information system that does not fully
support business tasks. Sometimes there is a department in a company that is not linked to the main business process and
does not support business needs. As a result, the organization becomes less flexible as it is difficult to adapt to market
changes. Only companies, which applications are quickly and efficiently adapted to meet the changes of business needs will be
still competitive in the global market.
The unconformity between business and information system commonly takes place in almost every company or organization.
The effort to synchronize this unconformity usually does not bring much impact, mainly because of two things: 1 the
complexity of Information Technology architecture which origin is from heterogeneous application, constructed from different
architectures and programming languages as well as different platform 2 the existing application must still be operating while
being improved.
According to Juric et al [2], SOA is not a sudden, new architecture but it is a result of the evolution of integration mode
and distributed architecture. Before SOA, an inter-application integration method referred as EAI Enterprise Application
Integration has been developed. At first, EAI focused on the application integration in a company intra-EAI. In line with
the development of the need of integration inter-companies B2B, business-to-business, EAI focus is widened into inter-
EAI.
Intra-EAI integration means to integrate applications in the company by creating services as functionality of existing
applications. B2B integration or inter-EAI is related to message exchange outside company services.
SOA definitions vary, there is no general definition for SOA. In this research, SOA concepts will be reviewed based on the
concept of SOA Delivery SOAD according to Erl [5]. SOAD according to Erl [5] is software architecture developed using
service oriented principles design. This service oriented design means that system functionality is broken down into smaller
logical unit referred to as services.
Even though it gives obvious contribution, SOAD has not been sufficient to carry out service based integration. There are some
problems related to integration implementation in SOAD , which are 1 no language support for modeling, 2 no guideline
of the implementation of the services attained from services identification, and 3 services orchestration use only web
services.
Therefore, SOAD in itself has not been optimum to do the integration. That is why other methods that can deal with SOAD
weaknesses are needed. Based on the review and comparison of some integration methods, a method to help dealing with SOAD
weaknesses, MDA Model-driven Architecture proposed by OMG is chosen. The decision to integrate MDA and SOAD is
based on: 1 MDA is a model-driven method based on the use of free platform technology model, 2 this method can be used to
transform high level model business process to low level one code, 3 the presence of standard modeling language.
With the combined of MDA and SOAD will give benefit that complete each other, which is, SOA provides infrastructure that
reduce complexity in reusing service and integrate all kinds of technology, protocol and application, whereas MDA used in
transforming high Business Process Model to low level model programming code that is platform free.
2. RESEARCH PURPOSE
The purposes of the research are to: 1. Identify SOA based integration method by combining
SOAD and MDA methods; 2. Validate the method identified through applicability testing
by carrying out SOA based integration using Web Services, ESB, and BPEL.
The significances of the research are: 1. The finding can be used to synchronize company business
process and company information system. Company will be more flexible in adapting to its business environment. This
flexibility takes place because the services, both services of the existing applications and new services, are easily
developed and because new process can be developed from
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between information system and business process or company strategy. With the fast changing business process,
this layering process enables a fast process or services reconfiguration without interfering on going operational
activity.
2. The finding of methodology aspect for SOA based integration can be used to integrate Business to Business
B2B, Business to Government B2G and Government to Government G2G. It can also be constructed as a base to
construct industrial network that integrate small businesses, big companies and government.
3. It can be used as an effort to develop knowledge and technology especially in the field of open source based
information technology. This research contributes mainly to distributed computation technology with main focus in SOA
based integration that includes some latest technology such as Web Services, BPEL, and ESB.
3. RESEARCH CONTRIBUTION
The research proposes the integration method of SOAD and MDA. The combination of these two methods is based on the
thinking that each method in itself will not be optimum in integrating services. SOAD itself can only provide services
analysis and identification which are mapped to User Interface Service Layer, but it does not provide guideline to implement
services found. MDA method possess superiority in the transformation of high level Business Process Model to low
level model code which is platform free but without guideline in term of finding services.
Therefore, the main contribution of this research is that the integration method will open the opportunity to bring service
definition to a higher level of abstraction, which is platform free, in the form of a model in the higher level that can be
transformed to services implementation. In this way, SOA can be made separately from lower level platform, infrastructure and
implementations, that it will finally improve integration. This integration approach will enable the reuse and improvement of
integration in a different model level.
In addition, the contribution of this research is to translate high level business process to programming code, with the following
steps: 1 define high business process level that is platform free, 2 decompose this business process into services, 3 transform
the free platform services into particular platform Java EE. Without the support of this method, the translational of abstract
business needs into programming code in supporting IT development will be intuitive.
4. RELATED WORK
