Quality assurance for SOA requires a different mindset

SOA or ESB - the lines are blurred: While I agree that SOA does require a different mindset to QA, I don?t necessarily agree it's more complex than or as dismal as this article suggest. It's just different - and if done right, can bring enormous velocity to the development and QA process.

I believe the lines between SOA and ESB (Enterprise Service Bus) have been blurred a bit based on some of the dialog in this article. An ESB does make certain assumptions about disparate enterprises services working as advertised, but that?s not a core tenet of SOA. Services can exist within the ESB fabric and sill not be built on SOA principles. SOA is all too often cast in the Web Services view of things which is how many ESB application components come to exist when they weren?t originally developed with SOA principles.

In short, SOA promotes a highly messaging centric approach to creating software. A discrete business function requires certain inputs and will produce specific outputs. In many ways, this model simplifies the QA process by allowing for easier automated tests against defined messaging structures leaving the more complex tests such as scenario based to humans and functional experts of the system.; Posted by: entrican Posted on: 04/09/08 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use