Large enterprises have found that Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) can provide agile and flexible infrastructures. Small to medium-size businesses (SMBs) are now considering how to implement this approach. With their direct business-to-business business models, SMBs are challenged with unique integration needs. To achieve benefits like their enterprise counterparts, SMBs will have to implement loosely coupled, SOA-based Web Services in order to progress beyond traditionally inflexible and costly integration.

The SMB IT Market Position

SMBs frequently have just as varied and complex of IT needs as larger enterprises, but have to address those needs with a small IT staff in which a few people are tasked with managing databases, networks, integration, and more. Although it would be rare for a small business to need major internal integration, many midsize businesses use legacy host and server systems for vertical applications (retailers use accounting and point of sale solutions, hospitals leverage patient accounting software as well as dedicated clinical and lab solutions, small manufacturers install focused shop floor applications). Despite using a single platform for their back office, these midsize businesses frequently face integration challenges when it comes to linking legacy-based accounting packages with CRM, shop floor or partner support applications.

Company Size and Integration Need

The traditional SMB business models and IT infrastructure demands have been transformed by the Internet. With the Web, who can determine whether you have a staff of five or 500?  These days, everyone from boutique online stores to midsize firms across industries leverage Web sites as a key part of their business.

Now that SMBs have mastered basic Web functions and taken advantage of increased visibility via the Internet, SMBs are looking to use the Internet as a means to work more efficiently and share data and applications with their partners, distributors, suppliers and customers. Other data integration approaches, like Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), have been mostly out of reach of SMBs because of high costs for set up and maintenance. The Internet allows SMBs to interface directly with other entities at a fraction of the cost, using Web-based integration.

Internet-based integration between SMBs and other companies has predominately been addressed by the Web Services approach, which uses a set of software interfaces that are based on widely accepted standards. Web Services built on accepted standards make it possible for companies to interact and share data regardless of the type of back-end systems they use. Web Services is particularly suited to SMBs, which have benefited from the ability to integrate directly with other organizations without needing to recode their legacy applications, usually a costly operation.

SMB-ready Architecture: Loosely Coupled Web Services

SMBs have to move beyond basic Web Services-based integration requirements and adopt an architecture that offers the capability of loosely coupled Services in an SOA architecture in order to take full advantage of Web Services.

Web Services can be approached several different ways. SMBs can generally use HTTP, the underlying Web protocol that provides the interaction necessary for simple authentication or SSL security. Some HTTP traffic uses the Representation State Transfer (REST) approach. Some SMBs find REST too limiting in its simplistic point-to-point Web services approach, while it is sufficient for others. Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) has been the most commonly used protocol for Web Services. Also running on HTTP, SOAP supports a number of other standards, such as security, reliability and other value-added capabilities. Although SOAP has been the most basic and unifying option for SMBs, allowing data interaction between companies, there is still a need for an architecture that allows loosely coupled Web Services.

With Web Services loosely coupled, individual changes in software, such as updates or modified functionality, do not affect business processes, a common problem that arises with tightly coupled Services. When Services that are tightly coupled are used independently, a domino effect can occur if one change is made. SMBs can create an architecture based on loosely coupled Services that provides flexibility for enhancements and changes by implementing Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA).

SOA is a method of organizing IT resources in a way that makes software functionality available as loosely coupled Services that a business can then access and group into flexible business processes.  SOA implementations have so far been focused in the complex heterogeneous IT environments of large enterprises, but now SMBs are beginning to leverage SOA for the same benefits realized by larger companies, including the ability to easily adapt to unpredictable business changes and integrate with other companies.

How SMBs are Leveraging SOA

SMBS that can offer or use loosely coupled Services make themselves available to a variety of business model options across diverse industries. Although there are many industry-specific application possibilities, some general business opportunities that SOA-based Web Services enable include the following:

• Better Interactions with Large Customers:
  • Though EDI is still widely used in creating networks with large enterprises, SOA-based Web Services offer a way to lower cost for both suppliers and purchasers in addition to providing a more flexible interface for the inevitable technology migrations and extensions, like RFID for instance. The extent of an SMB's ability to use Services may range from simply accessing a purchaser's Services through a user interface to integrating their internal processes into the purchaser's own requisition and purchasing processes.
• Improved Channel Capability with Large Partners
  • This is the area that may still have the most room for growth, as SMBs with businesses based on the products and services of larger enterprises use SOA-based Web Services to more readily access the data and services they need to execute their business, which is traditionally trapped in tightly coupled Services which makes innovation extremely slow and expensive.
• Efficient Channel Networks
  • SMBs can leverage Web services within their channel partnerships to create flexible networks for shared catalogs, ordering systems, account management and more.
• External Services
  • SOA-based Web Services allow SMBs to make Services like sales tax and shipping publicly available in a user-friendly format so that customers can connect the Services that they need. These customer-facing Services allow SMBs to scale their business as demand grows.
• Acting as an Independent Sofware Vendor (ISV)
  • SMBS can use Web Services to create end-to-end software solutions by linking individual applications in meaningful ways. For instance, an inventory application can use Web Services to interact with a shipping program or a CRM application can be linked with an order placement application.

Implementing SOA

If the business processes of the SMB or its partners has very infrequent changes, then a loosely coupled Web Services may not be needed and a straightforward application programming interface (API) might be sufficient for the sharing of data and services. However, if either the provider or consumer of Services makes regular changes to the interface that require additional coding and software development, such as adding partners, making updates in functionality to Services or adding new Services, then an SOA-based Web Services infrastructure could provide significant value.

Companies looking to create sufficiently flexible Web Services must do more than replace tightly coupled Web Services; they must implement the following infrastructure layers for an SOA:

• Management infrastructure to regulate the availability and performance of Services with changing consumer traffic
• A registry for keeping an inventory of Services for Service consumers to find the contracts and other metadata that apply to them
• A metadata repository for the metadata and other relevant artifacts corresponding to the available Services (The same product may serve as both registry and repository)
• A Web Services gateway to secure the Services, enforce the Service level and other policies that apply to the Services, and also route Service requests to the appropriate Service
• An architecture that provides the master plan for how these infrastructure layers will provide for loosely coupled Services as the situation changes

Summary

Large enterprises and SMBs face different business challenges and therefore have unique IT infrastructure needs, especially in the level of internal integration necessary for smoothly operating business processes. However, though SMBs rarely need complex internal integration, they can almost unilaterally benefit from the ability to easily and flexibly interact with outside entities, ranging from suppliers and partners to customers, via loosely coupled Web Services. Web Services based on a Service-Oriented Architecture approach provides the ability for companies with a small IT staff and limited resources to adapt and respond to continual changes in business process and even implement new business models based on the integration functionality it enables.

Archie Roboostoff, director of product management at NetManage. Roboostoff is responsible for product development and strategy identifying real world customer pain points and repeatedly creating workable solutions for those complex problems. Today, NetManage provides the most comprehensive legacy and EIS integration solutions for some of the most respected names in the Fortune 500. NetManage's customers are spread across sectors such as telecommunications, health, technology, financial services, government, manufacturing, retail, and transportation. 

Archie Roboostoff has more than 10 years of experience in the high tech industry. Roboostoff is also the founder of e1525, Inc, a data management/ETL company, where he was instrumental in product management, initial development, VC funding and sales. When e1525 was acquired by a third party, the company had over 15 enterprise customers.

NetManage, Inc. (NASDAQ: NETM) is a software company that provides the fastest way to transform legacy applications into new Web-based business solutions. More than 10,000 customers worldwide, including the majority of the Fortune 500, have chosen NetManage for mission critical application integration. For more information, visit www.netmanage.com.