Service-Oriented Architecture

Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) is an architectural approach in which

applications make use of services available in the network. In this
architecture, services are provided to form applications, through a
communication call over the internet. 
 
 SOA allows users to combine a large number of facilities from
existing services to form applications.
 SOA encompasses a set of design principles that structure system
development and provide means for integrating components into a
coherent and decentralized system.
 SOA based computing packages functionalities into a set of
interoperable services, which can be integrated into different
software systems belonging to separate business domains.
There are two major roles within Service-oriented Architecture: 
 
1. Service provider: The service provider is the maintainer of the
service and the organization that makes available one or more
services for others to use. To advertise services, the provider can
publish them in a registry, together with a service contract that
specifies the nature of the service, how to use it, the requirements
for the service, and the fees charged.
2. Service consumer: The service consumer can locate the service
metadata in the registry and develop the required client
components to bind and use the service.
 

Services might aggregate information and data retrieved from other services
or create workflows of services to satisfy the request of a given service
consumer. This practice is known as service orchestration Another important
interaction pattern is service choreography, which is the coordinated
interaction of services without a single point of control. 
Components of SOA: 
 

Guiding Principles of SOA: 

 
1. Standardized service contract: Specified through one or more
service description documents.
2. Loose coupling: Services are designed as self-contained
components, maintain relationships that minimize dependencies on
other services.
3. Abstraction: A service is completely defined by service contracts
and description documents. They hide their logic, which is
encapsulated within their implementation.
4. Reusability: Designed as components, services can be reused
more effectively, thus reducing development time and the
associated costs.
5. Autonomy: Services have control over the logic they encapsulate
and, from a service consumer point of view, there is no need to
know about their implementation.
6. Discoverability: Services are defined by description documents
that constitute supplemental metadata through which they can be
effectively discovered. Service discovery provides an effective
means for utilizing third-party resources.
7. Composability: Using services as building blocks, sophisticated
and complex operations can be implemented. Service orchestration
and choreography provide solid support for composing services and
achieving business goals.
Advantages of SOA: 
 
 Service reusability: In SOA, applications are made from existing
services. Thus, services can be reused to make many applications.
  Easy maintenance: As services are independent of each other
they can be updated and modified easily without affecting other
services.
 Platform independent: SOA allows making a complex application
by combining services picked from different sources, independent
of the platform.
 Availability: SOA facilities are easily available to anyone on
request.
 Reliability: SOA applications are more reliable because it is easy
to debug small services rather than huge codes
 Scalability: Services can run on different servers within an
environment, this increases scalability
Disadvantages of SOA: 
 
 High overhead: A validation of input parameters of services is
done whenever services interact this decreases performance as it
increases load and response time.
 High investment: A huge initial investment is required for SOA.
 Complex service management: When services interact they
exchange messages to tasks. the number of messages may go in
millions. It becomes a cumbersome task to handle a large number
of messages.
Practical applications of SOA: SOA is used in many ways around us
whether it is mentioned or not. 
 
1. SOA infrastructure is used by many armies and air force to deploy
situational awareness systems.
2. SOA is used to improve the healthcare delivery.
3. Nowadays many apps are games and they use inbuilt functions to
run. For example, an app might need GPS so it uses inbuilt GPS
functions of the device. This is SOA in mobile solutions.
4. SOA helps maintain museums a virtualized storage pool for their
information and content.

Performance Issues with Cloud Computing

Have you ever planned to adapt cloud computing as a New Year
resolution, that is apart from the extreme dieting and grueling workout
regimes? If not, then it is high time for your business to hop on the cloud.
Nowadays, cloud computing is accelerating to a destination with no
return. Just a few cloud-computing services include Amazon EC2,
Microsoft Azure, and Google Apps. All of these companies have
experienced some kind of outage or slowdown at one point or another,
thereby affecting the businesses worldwide, especially those that rely on
the cloud for the critical operations.
Now is the time to take a quick glance at the critical hurdles that you
might face while implementing and operating in the cloud:

Application that fits the cloud

Not all the applications are suitable for cloud. It is extremely important
to identify the most suitable applications for migration and identify any
potential problems. Create a checklist to ensure a complete and
successful migration.

Dealing with the performance issues

If you are managing application performance in the cloud, you need a
topological map of service delivery across all tiers. Although cloud
computing offers numerous benefits, performance issues can
complicate or reduce the benefits.

Addressing the topological dependencies

While moving to cloud, various businesses need to face the impact of
moving from a primarily static to a dynamic network architecture.
Firewall, load balancing and security services are still required for the
network architecture.

Monitoring consumption for every service

While transitioning from a resource focused cost center to a business
service focused profit center, it demands assessing the resource
consumption. Unfortunately, the traditional chargeback and AMP tools
lack the ability to enable the business aligned costing and chargeback
paradigms. This means that you need to come up with a solution to
monitor consumption for every service across multiple applications and
tiers.
Have a clear picture of resource consumption
In order to make it sure that SLA’s in cloud are met, you need to prioritize
the allocation of resources based on the measurement of the end user
performance. It demands a clear picture of the resource consumption at
the transaction level.

Lack of infrastructure configuration for service deployment

The lack of knowledge and infrastructure configuration for the service
deployment has limited the ability of researchers to study the impact of
resource management inside the cloud infrastructures on the service
performance through measurement-based evaluations. This makes it
difficult for a service customer to use a measurement-based method to
get insight about the performance behaviors of new Cloud services.
Depending upon the size and the type of business you are running, the
cloud offers you various benefits. For a startup, cloud computing
provides essential differentiators to keep the business up and running
quickly with minimal up-front costs. Larger businesses often face
complex challenges to ensure the availability and performance of the
high traffic websites. The cloud helps the enterprises to increase their
operational efficiency and productivity. With the rapid advancement in
cloud computing and networking technologies, various providers have
come up with a wide spectrum of cloud services.
Clearly, you can expect increased agility with lower costs if you move
your services to the cloud. However, it is easier said than done. Most
likely you will face various risks along the way along that can be complex
to manage. Transitioning to the cloud is a non-trivial decision that
demands a proper evaluation of both the data and services. It is
important to perform a thorough evaluation on the cloud service
performance as this is what will be beneficial for both service providers
as well as customers.

data center
At its simplest, a data center is a physical facility that organizations use to
house their critical applications and data. A data center's design is based on a
network of computing and storage resources that enable the delivery of shared
applications and data. The key components of a data center design include
routers, switches, firewalls, storage systems, servers, and application-delivery
controllers.

What defines a modern data center?

Modern data centers are very different than they were just a short time ago.
Infrastructure has shifted from traditional on-premises physical servers to virtual
networks that support applications and workloads across pools of physical
infrastructure and into a multicloud environment.
In this era, data exists and is connected across multiple data centers, the edge, and
public and private clouds. The data center must be able to communicate across
these multiple sites, both on-premises and in the cloud. Even the public cloud is a
collection of data centers. When applications are hosted in the cloud, they are using
data center resources from the cloud provider.
What is in a data center facility?
Data center components require significant infrastructure to support the center's
hardware and software. These include power subsystems, uninterruptible power
supplies (UPS), ventilation, cooling systems, fire suppression, backup generators,
and connections to external networks.
What are the standards for data center infrastructure?
The most widely adopted standard for data center design and data center
infrastructure is ANSI/TIA-942. It includes standards for ANSI/TIA-942-ready
certification, which ensures compliance with one of four categories of data center
tiers rated for levels of redundancy and fault tolerance.
Tier 1: Basic site infrastructure. A Tier 1 data center offers limited protection against
physical events. It has single-capacity components and a single, nonredundant
distribution path. 
Tier 2: Redundant-capacity component site infrastructure. This data center offers
improved protection against physical events. It has redundant-capacity components
and a single, nonredundant distribution path. 
Tier 3: Concurrently maintainable site infrastructure. This data center protects against
virtually all physical events, providing redundant-capacity components and multiple
independent distribution paths. Each component can be removed or replaced without
disrupting services to end users. 
Tier 4: Fault-tolerant site infrastructure. This data center provides the highest levels of fault
tolerance and redundancy. Redundant-capacity components and multiple independent
distribution paths enable concurrent maintainability and one fault anywhere in the installation
without causing downtime.

Legal Issues around Cloud Computing

Cloud computing is bringing amazing advantages and benefits companies. But it
also brings some challenges. There are several legal issues that must be taken
into consideration when moving into the cloud. Let’s see which are the most
challenging legal issues around cloud computing and how to overcome them.

Security procedures
The majority of companies which implemented cloud solutions and services do
not have security procedures in place. Also, they lack measures to approve or
evaluate cloud applications. When adopting the BYOD trend for example,
organizations needed these security procedures more than ever. General data
security trainings, multiple levels of security, rigorous procedures to use one’s
own device and to transfer or copy data are some of the options available to
protect data in organizations. The bottom line is that security procedures must
be established according to every company’s objectives and work flow.

Third party access issues

Third-party involvement could be a risk. All third parties using a multi-tenant
shared cloud are using the same administration interface, so make sure multi-
factor authentication and enhanced security is present.  Also, look
for HIPAA compliant providers – a business associate agreement (BAA) with
third-party vendor who access Protected Health Information (PHI) is necessary to
ensure privacy and security requirements. A partnership with a HIPAA solutions
provider that signs a BAA is an efficient method to make sure this this goes
smoothly and everything is secure. And don’t forget to read carefully the terms
and conditions before signing up for a cloud based services.

Intellectual Property Rights

Intellectual Property Rights differ from one country to another, so it is not very
clear what intellectual property laws will apply in the cloud computing
environment. Make sure you are aware of the regulations and rights from the
country you store your intellectual work. The provider you choose should know
how to protect intellectual property it stores and how to avoid potential
infringement pitfalls.

Confidential data theft attacks

Data stored in the cloud might be compromised or breached. Therefore, most
cloud computing providers also offer the customer different levels of security
protection, which allows for more enhanced security. Encryption might seem to
have failed in protecting data from theft attacks, but other methods have been
discovered and implemented, including monitoring data access in the cloud to
detect abnormal data access patterns. The customer has to understand the
cloud provider’s disclosure policy and how quickly the breach would be disclosed
to them. Most of the U.S. states have security breach disclosure laws requiring
the provider to inform the customers when their data has been compromised.
Many of these legal issues and the methods to inform about them or to solve
them should be mentioned in the Service Level Agreement. It is essential to
understand all the terms of the cloud’s provider and to consider the needs and
objectives of the enterprise before signing an agreement.
What are your thoughts on this topic? Did you ever deal with any of the legal issues
mentioned in this article? Really curious to hear how the problem was solved. Feel free to
add your opinions in the comments section below.
 

Cloud Service Provider Companies

Cloud Service providers (CSP) offers various services such as Software as a
Service, Platform as a service, Infrastructure as a service, network
services, business applications, mobile applications, and infrastructure in
the cloud. The cloud service providers host these services in a data center, and
users can access these services through cloud provider companies using an Internet
connection.

There are the following Cloud Service Providers Companies -

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

AWS (Amazon Web Services) is a secure cloud service platform provided
by Amazon. It offers various services such as database storage, computing power,
content delivery, Relational Database, Simple Email, Simple Queue, and other
functionality to increase the organization's growth.
Features of AWS

AWS provides various powerful features for building scalable, cost-effective,

enterprise applications. Some important features of AWS is given below-

o AWS is scalable because it has an ability to scale the computing resources

up or down according to the organization's demand.

o AWS is cost-effective as it works on a pay-as-you-go pricing model.

o It provides various flexible storage options.

o It offers various security services such as infrastructure security, data

encryption, monitoring & logging, identity & access control, penetration
testing, and DDoS attacks.
o It can efficiently manage and secure Windows workloads.

2. Microsoft Azure
Microsoft Azure is also known as Windows Azure. It supports various operating
systems, databases, programming languages, frameworks that
allow IT professionals to easily build, deploy, and manage applications through a
worldwide network. It also allows users to create different groups for related
utilities.
Features of Microsoft Azure
o Microsoft Azure provides scalable, flexible, and cost-effective

o It allows developers to quickly manage applications and websites.

o It managed each resource individually.

o Its IaaS infrastructure allows us to launch a general-purpose virtual machine

in different platforms such as Windows and Linux.

o It offers a Content Delivery System (CDS) for delivering the Images,

videos, audios, and applications.

3. Google Cloud Platform

Google cloud platform is a product of Google. It consists of a set of physical
devices, such as computers, hard disk drives, and virtual machines. It also helps
organizations to simplify the migration process.
Features of Google Cloud
o Google cloud includes various big data services such as Google BigQuery,
Google CloudDataproc, Google CloudDatalab, and Google Cloud Pub/Sub.

o It provides various services related to networking, including Google Virtual

Private Cloud (VPC), Content Delivery Network, Google Cloud Load Balancing,
Google Cloud Interconnect, and Google Cloud DNS.
o It offers various scalable and high-performance

o GCP provides various serverless services such as Messaging, Data

Warehouse, Database, Compute, Storage, Data Processing, and Machine
learning (ML)
o It provides a free cloud shell environment with Boost Mode.

4. IBM Cloud Services

IBM Cloud is an open-source, faster, and more reliable platform. It is built with a
suite of advanced data and AI tools. It offers various services such as Infrastructure
as a service, Software as a service, and platform as a service. You can access its
services like compute power, cloud data & Analytics, cloud use cases, and storage
networking using internet connection.

Feature of IBM Cloud

o IBM cloud improves operational efficiency.

o Its speed and agility improve the customer's satisfaction.

o It offers Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), as

well as Software as a Service (SaaS)

o It offers various cloud communications services to our IT environment.

5. VMware Cloud
VMware cloud is a Software-Defined Data Center (SSDC) unified platform for the
Hybrid Cloud. It allows cloud providers to build agile, flexible, efficient, and robust
cloud services.

Features of VMware
o VMware cloud works on the pay-as-per-use model and monthly
subscription
o It provides better customer satisfaction by protecting the user's data.

o It can easily create a new VMware Software-Defined Data Center

(SDDC) cluster on AWS cloud by utilizing a RESTful API.

o It provides flexible storage options. We can manage our application storage

on a per-application basis.

o It provides a dedicated high-performance network for managing the

application traffic and also supports multicast networking.

o It eliminates the time and cost complexity.

6. Oracle cloud
Oracle cloud platform is offered by the Oracle Corporation. It combines Platform
as a Service, Infrastructure as a Service, Software as a Service, and Data as a
Service with cloud infrastructure. It is used to perform tasks such as moving
applications to the cloud, managing development environment in the cloud, and
optimize connection performance.
Features of Oracle cloud
o Oracle cloud provides various tools for build, integrate, monitor, and secure
the applications.

o Its infrastructure uses various languages including, Java, Ruby, PHP, Node.js.

o It integrates with Docker, VMware, and other DevOps tools.

o Oracle database not only provides unparalleled integration between IaaS,

PaaS, and SaaS, but also integrates with the on-premises platform to improve
operational efficiency.
o It maximizes the value of IT investments.

o It offers customizable Virtual Cloud Networks, firewalls, and IP addresses to

securely support private networks.

7. Red Hat
Red Hat virtualization is an open standard and desktop virtualization platform
produced by Red Hat. It is very popular for the Linux environment to provide various
infrastructure solutions for virtualized servers as well as technical workstations. Most
of the small and medium-sized organizations use Red Hat to run their organizations
smoothly. It offers higher density, better performance, agility, and security to the
resources. It also improves the organization's economy by providing cheaper and
easier management capabilities.
Features of Rad Hat
o Red Hat provides secure, certified, and updated container images via the Red
Hat Container catalog.

o Red Hat cloud includes OpenShift, which is an app development platform

that allows developers to access, modernize, and deploy apps

o It supports up to 16 virtual machines, each having up to 256GB of RAM.

o It offers better reliability, availability, and serviceability.

o It provides flexible storage capabilities, including very large SAN-based

storage, better management of memory allocations, high availability of LVMs,
and support for particularly roll-back.
o In the Desktop environment, it includes features like New on-screen
keyboard, GNOME software, which allows us to install applications, update
application, as well as extended device support.

8. DigitalOcean
DigitalOcean is the unique cloud provider that offers computing services to the
organization. It was founded in 2011 by Moisey Uretsky and Ben. It is one of the
best cloud provider that allows us to manage and deploy web applications.

Features of DigitalOcean
o It uses the KVM hypervisor to allocate physical resources to the virtual
servers.

o It provides high-quality performance.

 o It offers a digital community platform that helps to answer queries and
holding feedbacks.

o It allows developers to use cloud servers to quickly create new virtual

machines for their projects.

o It offers one-click apps for droplets. These apps include MySQL, Docker,
MongoDB, Wordpress, PhpMyAdmin, LAMP stack, Ghost, and Machine
Learning.

9. Rackspace
Rackspace offers cloud computing services such as hosting web applications, Cloud
Backup, Cloud Block Storage, Databases, and Cloud Servers. The main aim to
designing Rackspace is to easily manage private and public cloud deployments. Its
data centers operating in the USA, UK, Hong Kong, and Australia.

Features of Rackspace
o Rackspace provides various tools that help organizations to collaborate and
communicate more efficiently.

o We can access files that are stored on the Rackspace cloud drive, anywhere,
anytime using any device.

o It offers 6 globally data centers.

o It can manage both virtual servers and dedicated physical servers on the
same network.
o It provides better performance at a lower cost.

10. Alibaba Cloud

Alibaba Cloud is used to develop data management and highly scalable cloud
computing services. It offers various services, including Elastic Computing, Storage,
Networking, Security, Database Services, Application Services, Media Services,
Cloud Communication, and Internet of Things.

Features of Alibaba Cloud

o Alibaba cloud offers a suite of global cloud computing services for both
international customers and Alibaba Group's e-commerce ecosystem.
o Its services are available on a pay-as-per-use basis.

o It globally deals with its 14 data centers.

o It offers scalable and reliable data storage.