Single Source of Truth (SSOT) for Service Oriented Architecture (SOA)

Abstract

Enterprises have embraced Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) for years. With SOA, each business entity should be the Single Source of Truth (SSOT) of its data, and offer data services to other entities. Instead of sharing data through services, many business entities still share data through data replication. Replicating data causes inconsistencies and interoperability challenges. Even when there is a single authoritative source, that resolves inconsistencies, the data copies may end up being out-of-sync and cause errors. This paper describes how to use a SSOT service to eliminate data replication, enforce data autonomy, advocate data self-containment, and enhance data maintenance. Both mutable and immutable SSOT relationships (mappings) are considered. This paper describes the challenges, solutions, interactions and abstractions between the SSOT data service providers and the loosely coupled data consumers. It also assesses the performance and future usage of a SSOT service.