SOA patterns: proposal for service virtualization

Here is another candidate SOA pattern submitted and being considered by the SOA patterns community process. If approved, it will be added to the established SOA patterns outlined at SOApatterns.org and in the book SOA Design Patterns (coordinated by Thomas Erl).

Candidate SOA pattern: Service virtualization

At issue: Insulating service infrastructure details such as service endpoint location, service inter-connectivity, policy enforcement, service versioning and dynamic service management information from service consumers.

Solution: A Service Virtualization infrastructure allows transparent service lookup and dispatch through an Enterprise Inventory, enforces policy through a policy enforcement point, employs elements of an ESB to handle service communication and leverages Redundant Implementation to achieve transparent quality of service management. The inventory architecture is equipped with policy processing and enforcement features.

Application: Service Virtualization consists of the Enterprise Service Bus, Enterprise Inventory, Policy Centralization, and Redundant Implementation patterns.

SOA proponents, enterprise architects, and IT professionals are invited to submit patterns they have identified for potential inclusion. SOA design patterns typically represent field-tested solutions, and organize intelligence into referenceable formats, and are intended to be repeatable by IT professionals.