Article:		Data Sources as Web Services
Subject:		Pros and cons of data sources webservices
Date:		2007-11-08 04:12:54
From:		ggiunta
In my very limited experience, exposing data sources as webservices with a very minimal amount of coding is the holy grail of SOA, even though about every single sw architect I ever met is against this principle. It is based on the 80/20 rule: after designing your service, 80% of the changes will be to the data model and will have to be reflected directly into the service interface (double work!). 20% of the changes will be to to the data model and not require an interface change (work saved). As an down-to-earth example, we always add new fields to existing queries, but very seldom change the database while keeping the same webservice interface (usually when you change db the app gets a major version upgrade too, with new/extended capabilities thrown in). That's wht I built my own SOA architecture around the design of directly exposing data sources (eg query and recordset objects), while making the webservice layer completely transparent to the coder. To just shield client away from direct table access, implement all db access via stored procedures, and you got the holy grail.

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