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Government of Canada Service Oriented Architecture Series - Primer
2.0 - About this Document
The Government of Canada is in the midst of a transformation on a scale never seen before. This government wide renewal process has consequences in both the public facing program areas as well as in internal service delivery. Simply put, the Government of Canada wishes to engage its citizens more fully while at the same time being more cost effective with the resources it currently has and consumes.
To support these goals, the Chief Architect and the Chief Information Officer of the Government of Canada recognize the need for a service-based whole-of-government approach to a business, information and technological infrastructure that supports the vision of a “service oriented” Federal Government. For instance, the newly instantiated Service Canada service bureau clearly encompasses such an approach not only in name but also by design. The services that Service Canada provides are the public facing extension of the services offered by many other federal government departments. The advent of Service Canada will allow citizens to see their government as a seamless portfolio of services that reinforce one another and together combine to deliver the outcomes that meet their needs.
“Service Orientation” is a powerful paradigm for organizing and utilizing distributed capabilities that might be under the control of different organizational owners. In a service-oriented environment, organizations make resources available to a community as independent services that can be accessed in a standardized way. But to successfully achieve a service-oriented vision, there must be a consistent way of defining and implementing services across the federal government. A proven way to do this is to create them like a set of interoperable business components that can be flexibly mixed-and-matched to cost effectively achieve the desired outcomes and deliver on the many mandates of government.
The expression "Government of Canada Service Oriented Architecture" (GC SOA) is the term CIOB is using to introduce a series of concepts that will help make it possible to deliver on this promise in a practical manner. To some audiences, in particular the more technically literate readers, it might appear that this GC SOA is akin to any typical Service Oriented Architecture (SOA as it is widely known in the Information Technology industry). While there is a definite draw from SOA concepts, TBS sees the GC SOA as being different in two key areas: context and application.
SOA is widely accepted as a best practice for information and technological design. The GC SOA however embraces a broader landscape and is the result of augmenting the technical concepts to also incorporate the business levels. Hence the GC SOA focuses beyond the usual technology realms of SOA.
Lastly, the GC SOA is also more precise in its application and includes specific guidance and flavouring as appropriate to the Canadian federal government helping to ensure that the government delivers its services in a more agile, interoperable, effective and efficient manner.
2.1 - Purpose
The purpose of this document is to provide a foundational overview of the GC SOA so all readers have a common and consistent understanding of the topic. Upon reading this document, readers should have an appreciation of SOA in general, why the Government of Canada is pursuing this strategy and appreciate the business focus and specific layers of the GC SOA that sets it apart from typical SOA models.
2.2 - Audience
This document is intended for general audiences and provides a high level view of the GC SOA. This document is a prerequisite for all additional guides and references related to the topic of GC Service Oriented Architecture. This document does not go into the level of technical detail needed to implement the GC SOA from a practitioner’s point of view. The goal is to ensure all audiences come away with a good foundation background of the GC SOA and a consistent understanding of the basic concepts.
It also assumes the reader is already familiar with the Statement of Direction for the GC SOA in the Government of Canada, as such it does not reiterate the benefits of service orientation, nor the rationale and motivation for adopting the GC SOA.
2.3 - Scope
The scope of this document is the introduction of the basic concepts of Service Oriented design. It covers the topic from the perspective of the Canadian Federal Government. It is not the intent of this document to reiterate the volumes of excellent industry literature regarding SOA, its usage and benefits.
