March 13, 2009
Why businesses should use web services
I am still surprised when I meet system designers who are not using web services, for me its a no brainer. Most organisations with a serious IT department have a large number of systems handling a different number of processes. What happens is that systems are developed that access the same data and the same code is developed multiple times resulting in a duplication of code and processes.
We have seen the following scenarios in how common data and functions are shared:
- In the worst situation you have disparate databases, often there may be data loads between these. E.g. duplicated customer tables in multiple databases.
- The next step up is a common database with applications using their own SQL or O/R mapping tools, getting a bit better with the one data repostitory but still separation of code.
- Next up we have procs and shared libraries i.e. DLL etc., moving towards shared code.
- At the top of the stack we have web services.
The big benefit of using web services is on the bottom line, its not immediately apparent and in the short term may cost more, for instance, if we build a customer web service it will take more development initially because you are essentially building a second application. However the payback comes when you subsequently have another app needing to access this data then it can consume your service, thus saving development. Over time you build a suite of services which encompass all you data and, hopefully most of the logic of you processes.
Ultimately your systems are enmessed, using the same data and the same logic. If a process or the associated data changes then you have one location to update (with applications just updating their proxies). We have been building web services for a number of clients now, and in all cases have found that it has saved us development and maintainance time. More importantly it saves the client money.
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