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Introduction
    Overview
    Service Inventory Blueprints
    Service-Oriented Analysis
    Service-Oriented Design

Service Models
    Service Layers
    Entity Services
    Task Services
    Utility Services

Delivery Processes
    Top Down vs. Bottom Up
    The Inventory Analysis
Cycle (Part I)
    The Inventory Analysis
Cycle (Part II)
    The Inventory Analysis
Cycle (Part III)
    Choosing a Delivery Strategy

The Service-Oriented
Analysis Process
    Process Overview
    Information Gathering Steps
    Service Modeling Process (Part I)
    Service Modeling Process (Part II)

Service-Oriented
Design Processes
    Process Overview
    Design Processes and
Service Models
    Design Processes and Service-Orientation

Additional Resources
    Web Sites
    Book Series
    Training
    Consulting


Delivery Processes

Top Down vs. Bottom Up

There are several project delivery approaches that can be employed to build services. The bottom-up strategy, for example, is tactically focused in that it makes the fulfillment of immediate business requirements a priority and the prime objective of the project. On the other side of the spectrum is the top-down strategy, which advocates the completion of an inventory analysis prior to the physical design, development, and delivery of services.


Figure: A comparison of bottom-up and top-down delivery strategies.

As shown in the figure, each approach has its own benefits and consequences. While the bottom-up strategy avoids the extra cost, effort, and time required to deliver services via a top-down approach, it ends up imposing increased governance burden as bottom-up delivered services tend to have shorter lifespans and require more frequent maintenance, refactoring, and versioning.

The top-down strategy demands more of an initial investment because it introduces an up-front analysis stage focused on the creation of the service inventory blueprint. Service candidates are individually defined as part of this blueprint so as to ensure that subsequent service designs will be highly normalized, standardized, and aligned.

This page contains excerpts from:

SOA Principles of Service Design
by Thomas Erl

(ISBN: 0132344823, Prentice Hall/PearsonPTR, Hardcover,
240+ Full Color Illustrations, 573 pages)

Free Color Poster (see www.soaposters.com).
For more information about this book, visit
www.soabooks.com/psd/.
The Prentice Hall Service-Oriented Computing Series from Thomas Erl
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