Using SOA and WEB Services for an Electricity Distribution Enterprise

Abstract

A viable enterprise today must adapt continously to the requirements of the market. The adaptation of a company to the market requirements means also changes of business processes within IT systems. In any enterprise there is a strong link between business processes and IT applications IT and a business process modification will determine a modification in the IT applications. In order to increase the alignment between business and IT and achieve business agility – the ability to respond to changes quickly and efficiency – we have to create a flexible mechanism between IT applications and business processes which will make that the adaptation to the market changes will be made quickly and with low consumption of either human or material resources. Therefore, enterprises need agility to maintain strategic advantages in operating businesses. Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) represents an architectural design which provide agility and satisfies the business processes in order to achieve business agility. In the IT area, SOA promises to reduce application development and maintenance costs through service reuse. A service may be considered as a set of components and software operations which are built in a way that permit them to be flexibly and dynamically integrated to cover both IT and business needs. SOA offers capabilities for the services to be combined together, to support and create a flexible and agile enterprise.

Keywords

• SOA
• Enterprise Applications
• Web Services