Next Generation Application Integration: From Simple Information to Web Services

The Basics

Service-Oriented Application Integration (SOAI) allows enterprises to share common application services as well as information. Enterprises accomplish this sharing either by defining application services they can share, and therefore integrate, or by providing the infrastructure for such application service sharing. Application services can be shared either by hosting them on a central server or by accessing them interapplication (e.g., through distributed objects or Web services).

Attempts to share common processes have a long history, one that began more than ten years ago with multitier client/server—a set of shared services on a common server that provided the enterprise with the infrastructure for reuse and now provides for integration—and ...