Quality Attributes for Service-Oriented Architectures

The SOA approach is a very popular choice today for the implementation of distributed systems. The use of SOA or more specifically the Web services technology is an important architecture decision. An architect should understand how different quality attributes for a system are impacted by that decision. While there are significant benefits with respect to interoperability and modifiability, other qualities such as performance, security and testability are concerns. This paper discusses how the different quality attributes of a system can be positively or negatively affected by the use of such technology. It describes the factors related to each attribute, as well as possible tradeoffs and existing efforts to achieve that quality. The paper also discusses open issues in service level agreements that are used to contract the level of service quality between service providers and users.