StrikeIron: Taking the Complexity out of Service Consumption
The traditional route for most independent software or hardware vendors (ISVs) to differentiate their application functionality is to build or acquire functionality and then integrate it tightly into their own offerings. However, over time, this approach leads to substantial complexity and brittleness as customer requirements and business objectives change.
The introduction of Web Services and Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) offers ISVs a new opportunity to add functionality to their offerings without having to build or acquire that technology and then go through a painful technology merging process. The ability to consume third-party Services that other vendors provide is a new capability that ISVs should explore as they continue to seek differentiation for their offerings. In this ZapNote, we explore the idea of embedding third-party Services within ISV offerings and how to do so without adding to their complexity.