9.4. Data transformations

In an SOA environment it’s not always possible to enforce a unified data representation technology for all service communications. Relying on business logic to convert data from one form to another removes some of SCA’s promised flexibility because it couples the service implementation, service collaboration, and service communication technologies tightly together. To exchange data in different representations without the intervention of business logic developers, we’ll need to introduce data transformation capabilities.

Bob and Mary have chosen to represent the data in different ways for their collaborating services. Data needs to be transformed so that the components can handle the data in their own formats. Let’s first understand what data transformation would be required for a round trip between the Payment and CreditCardPayment components from the TuscanySCATours scenario.