Service Lifecycle Management

Service-oriented architectures (SOA) are an intensively discussed architectural paradigm in science and practice. Originally grounding in software modularization efforts, SOA is increasingly part of the discourse on business models. For example, software providers no longer offer their solutions solely as complete packages, but rather allow customers to use them in parts or as a whole on a pay-per-use basis (Software as a Service, Platform as a Service). SOA's contribution within these business models is a flexibility gain obtained by abstracting from the underlying implementation. This abstraction leads to a decomposition of applications into fine-granular services. For example, a core banking system might offer a credit worthiness check, while a customer relationship management system processes the customer data. However, these applications are frequently based on different SOA models (e.g., SAP, Oracle). Consequently, increasing modularity causes higher complexity, due to heterogeneous service specifications, service development processes, service implementations, and operating models. Adding to this, often several suppliers with heterogenous SOA platforms are involved. Without a dedicated management of services along their life cycle (Service Lifecycle Management - SLM), additional alignment efforts would be necessary. Thus, the management of services as well as service portfolios arising from the modularization of monolithic applications plays an important role. However, SLM approaches are just as heterogeneous as the different applications and their SOA models. The numerous facets exhibit a clear dichotomy between technical and business-oriented approaches. This article suggests an integrated SLM model to overcome this dichotomy.