Pattern-based Integrability on Service Oriented Applications

DIEGO ANABALÓN; MARTÍN GARRIGA; ANDRES FLORES; ALEJANDRA CECHICH; ALEJANDRO ZUNINO

Buenos Aires

Conferencia; LA-PLOP, 11th Latin American Conference on Pattern Languages of Programs; 2016

Building service-oriented applications implies the selection and integration of adequate services to fulfill a required functionality. Even a reduced set of candidate services involves an overwhelming assessment effort. In a previous work, we have presented an approach to assist developers in the selection and integration of Web Services. In this paper, we detail an integration model that allows a loosely coupled connection to third-party Web Service. For this, the integration model is based in two design patterns, the Adapter and Proxy patterns, into a specific composition. The Adapter pattern provides the solution upon partial interface compatibilities between a consumer application requirement and the interface offered by a candidate Web Service. The Proxy pattern encapsulates the physical connection aspects required to communicate with the remote Web Service. In our integration model, a consumer application is related to the Adapter patten structure, which in turn makes use of the Proxy pattern structure to invoke the remote service. Therefore, the joint usage of such design patterns helps a consumer application to remain untouched, without modifying its source code upon the integration of a remote Web Service. This also enables a flexible maintenance through likely changes of a service provider without updating and/or re-testing the consumer application. A concise example is included to show the potential of this approach for both selection and integration of a candidate Web Service.