The following diagram depicts how the currently available SoaScape components relate to each other:

As shown, the product consists of four software components and three data stores.

• SOA Browser A desktop application that provides insight into the application landscape with the help of various visualizations. The user navigates through visualizations from one of three “viewpoints”: Outline, Realization, and Runtime. These are in line with the “concerns” of the target group: strategic decisions, development of solutions, or operational management. SOA Browser does not provide for changing the SoaScape database; for this, you use SoaScape Reconciler. All functionalities of Soa Browser are also available in Reconciler.
• SoaScape Web A web application that creates web reports (HTML pages) about interconnections and makes them available on a secure, internal website. The access rights may differ per report-type, depending on the sensitivity of the information. Reports contain various tables with information about applications, web services, and endpoints. Reports also include 3D dependency chain visualizations.
• Reconciler A desktop application that enables the user to maintain the information about the application landscape; maintenance activities include keeping information about interconnections up to date, publishing reports, and making the current database available. Reconciler is the only component of SoaScape that can update the SoaScape database. The information about web services and the API interconnections is mostly generated automatically from the data maintained in the Service Registry. The user needs to complete the remaining work, assisted by suggestions from Reconciler.
• Intermediary Monitors Server-side applications that periodically retrieve the current configuration (service definitions and policies) of intermediary facilities (SOA Gateways) from their internal registers and subsequently process that information into the SoaScape Service Registry. “Monitors” retrieve data by using a specific Management-API set and are therefore always associated with a single API Gateway type of product. A part of the information is translated into the unified format of the SoaScape Service Registry, and the rest is copied (making it available for further processing by Reconciler). Currently, “Layer7 API Gateway Monitor” is the only Monitor application available.

The data is stored in three data stores:

• SoaScape Database The database with the information about the application landscape. It is used by SOA Browser, Reconciler, and SoaScape Web. The data considered sensitive, like network addresses, is encrypted. The master copy of the database is maintained through Reconciler and also published from there.
• SoaScape Service Registry A secure data store (a web directory structure) with service definitions and policy rules that is created by Intermediary Monitor(s). The data can be accessed via a secure website (WebDav); RSS feeds are also available.
• SoaScape Reports A secure data store (a web directory structure) with various reports: tables and 3D graphics. Graphics use client-side scripts.

The currently planned enhancements (related to the structure of the product) are:

• Support for processing log files. The purpose is to automatically detect the use of APIs and subsequently suggest defining API interconnections.
• Support of other types of API Gateways (automated registration of APIs and the associated policies)

The following drawing shows these extensions:

Not all SoaScape components are mandatory!

For example, for a simple registration that is only manually updated, Reconciler and the SoaScape database are sufficient. This animation shows a possible growth path: