Service Oriented Architecture And SaaS

When searching for information in the blogosphere about Saas, many times I’ve seen this acronym associated with Service Oriented Architecture (SOA). In the Wikipedia, the concept of Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) is very well explained, so I just want to express my opinion on why I believe that SOA and Saas are closely related.

Something that SOA would like to emphasize is that it is not explicitly highlighted in the definition of wikipedia is that the decision of your information systems adopt the SOA model which is clearly strategic and must be clear on the benefit we gain from this decision. Saas however, only is an application that must be integrated into this model and therefore falls outside the company’s strategic decisions, at least for now since it seems difficult that the companies too consider putting their data and critical business logic on the cloud hosting services.

In companies where the information systems follow the SOA by definition would mean better applications or business functions that should be presented as services, either through web services or APIs. If we add this model, the concept of saas would be enforceable as a service applications and functions expose business logic through web services or APIs and also the business logic and the data is stored on those applications.

But the reality is that so far I know, there are not many applications as a service through which you can access your business logic and its data with web services.

Salesforce is one of them and perhaps for being the pioneer in saas environments and installed in over 41,000, companies requiring this type of application access on demand.

The truth is that it has something to joke, because if the saas is a service, you could put the word web and problem solved, but it is clear that the meaning of service in this case refers more to the use or consumption of the application to how to access it which is what interests us here.

My opinion is that, both concepts practically has just seen the light and being an SOA model that drags the whole company and experience which is difficult to implement. Not many companies with their information system are service-oriented and perhaps this is not vital that SaaS applications on the market do not cover this need, but I’m sure that they will incorporate this essential requirement for entry into the SOA model.