Test 669: SOA Fundamentals [2008]

Section 1 - The Value of SOA (15%)

1. Identify business functions where SOA can improve competitiveness and productivity.
2. Identify how SOA can provide return on investment (ROI) (improve competitiveness, reduce costs, increase responsiveness.)
3. Identify the SOA features that make businesses more agile.
4. Identify the opportunity costs of not adopting SOA.
5. Identify situations where SOA does not provide the desired value or is not appropriate.
6. Identify the business drivers for SOA.

Section 2 - SOA Concepts (26%)

1. Define the concept of a service in SOA.
2. Describe the architectural concepts used in SOA (for example: loose coupling and separation of concerns.)
3. Describe the roles that XML plays in SOA.
4. Describe the role of a service registry and/or repository in SOA.
5. Explain what a business process is in the context of SOA (including business process management and automation) and how it facilitates business flexibility.
6. Determine the role that technology standards (SOAP, WSDL, WS-Security, BPEL, WS-I, ) play in SOA.
7. Describe the role that Web 2.0 and its related technologies play in SOA (for example: REST and AJAX.)
8. Describe the importance of goals, KPIs, and measurement to business success with SOA.

Section 3 - Basic SOA Architecture (20%)

1. Describe the characteristics of a basic SOA architecture.
2. Describe the elements of the IBM SOA Reference Architecture, and their roles and relationships.
3. Describe the enterprise service bus (ESB) and its role in SOA.
4. Describe the role of Web services and messaging in building an SOA.
5. Describe orchestration of business processes using services and human interactions.
6. Describe the stages of the SOA lifecycle (model, assemble, deploy, manage.)

Section 4 - SOA Management (19%)

1. Explain the need for SOA governance.
2. Describe SOA governance and related concepts (roles and responsibilities, funding models, policies, enforcement, critical success factors, and metrics.)
3. Describe Quality of Service (QoS) issues pertinent to SOA.
4. Explain the need for a distributed security model (including issues like identify provisioning and propagation.)
5. Identify the impact of changes to services in the SOA lifecycle (change management, versioning, and service lifecycle.)
6. Identify the role of an enterprise service bus (ESB) in SOA management and governance.
7. Identify service management issues.

Section 5 - Preparing for SOA (20%)

1. Describe the elements of SOA governance that need to be addressed during the preparation for SOA.
2. Understand the importance of documenting business issues, drivers and goals when preparing for SOA.
3. Capture and assess IT issues, drivers, and goals (including metrics and KPIs.)
4. Describe the people, organizational, and technology factors that impact readiness for SOA and its success.
5. Describe the steps for SOA adoption (including adoption roadmaps and maturity assessments.)
6. Identify barriers to SOA adoption.
7. Describe points of entry into SOA.
8. Describe the importance of securing executive sponsorship and solving funding issues for SOA adoption.