Evolvability in Service Oriented Systems

Abstract

The paper investigates the evolution and maintenance of service oriented systems deployed in SOA and cloud infrastructures. It analyzes the challenges entailed by the frequent modifications of business environments, discussing their causes, grasping the evolution points in service architectures, studying classifications of human actors involved across the whole life cycle, as well as pointing out possible risks and difficulties encountered in the process of change. Based on the lessons learned in our study, four pillars for improving service evolvability are identified: orientation towards the users, increasing the level of abstraction, supporting automation and enabling adaptivity through feedback loops.