What are some common SOA patterns and anti-patterns that you have encountered or used in your projects?

1 Service Abstraction

Service abstraction is a key principle of SOA that states that the service contract should hide the implementation details and expose only the essential functionality and information to the consumers. Service abstraction can help achieve loose coupling, modularity, and maintainability, as the service can change its internal logic without affecting the consumers, as long as the contract remains consistent. Service abstraction can also enable service reuse, as the service can be consumed by different types of clients without requiring specific knowledge or customization. However, service abstraction also requires careful design and documentation, as the service contract should be clear, concise, and comprehensive, and avoid exposing unnecessary or sensitive data or operations. Service abstraction also requires proper testing and validation, as the service should ensure that it fulfills the contract expectations and meets the quality of service requirements.

2 Service Composition

Service composition is a pattern that involves creating higher-level services by combining and orchestrating lower-level services. Service composition can help achieve higher functionality, reusability, and flexibility, as the composed service can leverage the existing capabilities and features of the underlying services, and adapt to changing business needs and scenarios. Service composition can also enable service granularity, as the composed service can provide a coarse-grained interface that simplifies the consumption and integration of the underlying services. However, service composition also introduces complexity and dependency, as the composed service relies on the availability, performance, and compatibility of the underlying services. Service composition also requires proper coordination and governance, as the composed service should manage the communication, transaction, and exception handling among the underlying services, and ensure the consistency and reliability of the overall process.

3 Service Registry

Service registry is a pattern that involves creating a centralized repository that stores and publishes the metadata and location of the available services. Service registry can help achieve discovery, interoperability, and governance, as the service registry can facilitate the registration, lookup, and binding of the services, and provide information about the service contract, policies, and quality of service. Service registry can also enable dynamic binding, as the service consumers can discover and access the services at runtime, without hard-coding the service endpoints or references. However, service registry also poses security and reliability risks, as the service registry becomes a single point of failure and a potential target for attacks. Service registry also requires proper maintenance and synchronization, as the service registry should reflect the current state and status of the services, and avoid stale or inaccurate data.

4 Service Consumer Coupling

Service consumer coupling is an anti-pattern that occurs when the service consumer is tightly coupled to the service provider, either by design or by accident. Service consumer coupling can reduce the flexibility, scalability, and portability of the service consumer, as the service consumer becomes dependent on the specific implementation details, features, or versions of the service provider. Service consumer coupling can also increase the maintenance and testing efforts, as the service consumer needs to adapt to any changes or updates in the service provider, and ensure the compatibility and interoperability. Service consumer coupling can be avoided by following the principles of service abstraction, loose coupling, and contract-first design, and by using standards-based protocols, formats, and interfaces.

5 Service Integration Silos

Service integration silos is an anti-pattern that occurs when the services are integrated in an ad hoc, point-to-point, or proprietary manner, without following a consistent or coherent architecture or governance. Service integration silos can result in duplication, inconsistency, and inefficiency, as the services are not reused, shared, or coordinated across different domains or platforms. Service integration silos can also lead to complexity, fragility, and brittleness, as the services are not aligned with the business goals or processes, and are prone to errors, failures, or conflicts. Service integration silos can be avoided by following the principles of service orientation, service composition, and service registry, and by using enterprise service bus (ESB), service orchestration, or service choreography.

7 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?