Towards a Decision Support Tool for Service Identification in Service-Oriented Architecture

Given the turbulent environment, the demands exerted by customers, and the pressures from competitors, companies express more and more the need for an information architecture that can adapt and respond quickly to their needs at lower costs. A Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) is the leading choice for ensuring a flexible information system. Despite the current hype around SOA, there is no standard approach to setting up this new kind of architecture. However, a consensus is that a successful SOA is based on well-identified services. This paper introduces a systematic business process-based approach to assist SOA analysts in identifying the most convenient services for their enterprise. A case study illustrates the approach.