Integration of text-based applications into service-oriented architectures for transnational digital government

ABSTRACT

Significant efforts are currently being pursued by several countries and IT providers to deploy SOA (Service Oriented Architecture) designs of digital government systems that integrate or implement workflows of multiple software services and data sources. Unfortunately, many existing applications that can be useful in digital government are not implemented as Web Services, a fact that complicates their integration and interoperation within SOAs. To address this problem, this paper presents an approach to easily wrap text-based applications into Web Services. Compared to other application-wrapping approaches, this paper's solution exposes a simpler interface to users, completely hiding the complexities of understanding and developing Web Services. The approach is motivated by, and effective for, the important case of interactive applications, which is harder than batch-oriented applications and has not been considered by other approaches or software development environments. The paper briefly reviews a transnational digital government (TDG) project that requires interoperation and integration of independently developed geographically distributed information processing tools. The characteristics of SOAs are briefly described, along with their suitability for TDG systems and how they can be developed and deployed. The applications underlying the services needed for TDG are introduced and their SOA-relevant characteristics are identified. A framework is described for turning these applications into Web Services that are secure, support interactivity as needed, and do not constrain application functionality. The use of this framework and the evaluation of its benefits are described in the context of the deployment of application services needed by the TDG project.

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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.3 INFORMATION STORAGE AND RETRIEVAL
      H.3.4 Systems and Software
          Subjects: Distributed systems

Additional Classification:
  D. Software
  D.2 SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
        D.2.12 Interoperability

  H. Information Systems
  H.3 INFORMATION STORAGE AND RETRIEVAL
      H.3.5 On-line Information Services
          Subjects: Web-based services; Data sharing

General Terms:
Design, Management, Standardization

Keywords:
system integration, system interoperability, system management, transnational information system