What the term end-to-end means and what is connection between e2e and SOA?

[Former Member]

Hello,

I would like to ask you about the term E2E. It is still not clear to me. I understand the term E2E as:

1. e2e solution operations - means some tools?? (like root cause analysis)

2. e2e processes - means processes between SAP and other systems and applications?

It is still not clear to me. I am missing a simple description what is behind end-to-end. Also, what is the connection between e2e and SOA? Is SOA just a "way" how to implement e2e?

[Former Member]

Hi Adela,

Your question/s are quite open ended but I can try & make a few things a little clearer...

E2E:

If you try to define this on it's own, you would be wasting your time. E2E is in the eye of the beholder & the context it's used in, it could mean different things depending on who is looking at it.

E2E in the context of root cause analysis:

In many cases you have very integrated environments (SAP application & 3rd party applications all co-existing). You would then have business solutions (SAP or non-SAP) that need to communicate with other solutions (SAP on non-SAP) to achieve a necessary business function or to streamline a business process. If something goes wrong, you need some way (or tool) to analyse/trace where the issue lies. In order to achieve this you would need to trace the communication between all parties (SAP & non-SAP) involved in that communication path. Hence end-to-end root cause analysis, you're analysing the communication for the point of failure from where it starts to where it ends.

SOA & E2E?

Again, E2E needs to set in a specific context. For a Business Process Expert, E2E means a business from start to, through various solutions/applications until the end result is achieved. SOA could be the enabler in this case.

For an Integration persion, it could just a web service call & response. Here again SOA could be the enabler.

Let's just say that SOA could be one enabler of E2E. You could orchestrate an E2E solution to use many things like SOA, JMS, FTP etc...Together they would make up an E2E solution but SOA would be just one of the enablers.

Hope that helps!

Regards, Trevor

[Former Member]

Thank you Trevor, it helped a lot!

[Former Member]

Hi,

SOA represents a framework therefore a set of principle to define the IT architecture.

SOA can be seen as an extension of the Object Oriented programming architecture to fill the gap between business and IT.

For cleared example SOA is compared to the set of rules defining an growth plan of a city but I would say simpler a set of rules to build an house (electrical system plan,water system plan,heating system plan,etc...) then for every system you can have common standards to interact with the external world (Europeans standards for electricity,Internet connections,TV cables,water pipelines,etc..).

For better explanation SOA-RM and SOA-RA documents should be refered.

Regards,

Giammaria