Characterization of the Application of Service-Oriented Design Principles in Practice: A Systematic Literature Review

Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) is a paradigm to implement loosely-coupled, platform-independent distributed software systems using communicating services. Currently, SOA is well-recognized as an established architectural paradigm for distributed systems. Specific design principles for SOA have been recognized as fundamental for implementation in practice. In this article, a systematic literature review is performed to characterize SOA design principles regarding criteria including main domains of application, situations in which SOA is used, which basic design principles are used in practice, how research is evaluated, what benefits of using SOA design principles have been reported, and how SOA applications have been modeled. From 507 articles first selected, 67 were fully read, and 27 were considered of relevance for this research. Interesting results were found from this review. Most studies cited using at least one SOA design principle. Quality of SOA applications has been hardly mentioned. Few studies dealing with the effective application of design principles and how they affect quality are mentioned. SOA Design Principles are presented as key concepts in literature, but are not always shown in case studies as being explicitly applied in practice.