A Method for Migrating Object-Oriented Systems into SOA Services

Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) is a development paradigm for reusing services as an independent reuse unit. A service delivers a cohesive functionality through its external interface. Since services have unique characteristics which are not typically presented in conventional development approaches, there is a demand for effective approaches to developing services. Most of the current SOA methodologies presenta process where services are designed and developed from the requirements rather than reusing existing assets, which demands high cost and effort. Hence, a desirable approach is to be able to develop services by migrating from their existing legacy systems such as object-oriented system. A difficulty in this migration is that objects in object-oriented systems reveal characteristics which differ considerably from those of services. That is, objects are designed without considering commonalities among several consumers. In this paper, we first define mapping relationships between key artifacts in object-oriented system and those in SOA services. By these relationships and considering commonalities among several applications in a domain, we propose three systematic methods to migrate from object-oriented system to SOA services. Each method consists of a list of input and output artifacts and detailed guidelines which are performed in order. Through these methods, service developers can easily develop services with less effort.