Loose coupling and SOA

So I sad I would not talk about it but guess what? I changed my mind....

SO! What is decoupling? and What is SOA? Well lets start with decoupling and its meaning. So Wiki says

"In software engineering, coupling is the manner and degree of interdependence between software modules; a measure of how closely connected two routines or modules are the strength of the relationships between modules"

What this means is that concepts like Object Oriented Programming is based on linking classes together and creating dependencies between them. In broader sense we can coupling in applications where a creator/s will build multiple function into a single application or incorporated all the functions needed to get the app functional.

Loose coupling aims to alleviate dependency buy limiting how much one services knows about the workings of another. In terms of services here we see the Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) coming into play. By breaking up complex operations into services not only great from a dependency stand point but in this day and age services can be multifunctional and exist outside their initial intention. For instance a school may create a service that provides data to their public website or and internal application. This same service can allow the Educational Board access so it can be used to help planing of a regional or national stage.

A while back I was at a Big Data Hackathon and we spent our time working on a solution that would make a NoSQL database from csv files or simple excel spread sheets. What we learnt was that the power of the open data initiative. Individual companies and group volunteer data that would allow the creation of possibly new software solutions or data aggregation. Eventually our design became naturally loosely coupled from the application so that it would also be able to serve data itself.

These days big data is now big business and it should be our goal to get on board.