What is service orchestration and why is it essential for organizations?

What is service orchestration and why is it essential? Service orchestration allows you to take work out of the hands of your audience, for example the citizens of your municipality. It enables smooth and error-free data exchange. That is valuable on its own, but what you want to avoid is placing the responsibility for correct or incorrect communication on those very users. When you choose a framework for service orchestration, the chance of reliable data exchange increases significantly, especially when compared with a custom-built system.

Efficient management of data flows

At its core, service orchestration is about managing data flows efficiently between different applications. It ensures that errors are minimized and that any issues become visible as quickly as possible. Since the number of services is growing rapidly, it is important for organizations to stay ahead of the curve. Municipalities are a clear example of where this need is becoming increasingly urgent.

Often underestimated

Many organizations are not aware of the importance of proper service orchestration. When setting up integrations, the default choice is often an API. There are valid reasons for that choice, such as the desire to simplify technical complexity. Yet in many situations, choosing only API connections creates new complexity on the consumer side of those services.

Taking responsibility instead of shifting it

How does that happen? How can simplification on one side lead to increased complexity on the other? With a framework, you take responsibility for handling complexity on behalf of consumers. You make sure that any exchanged data is checked for correctness and completeness. With standalone APIs, these responsibilities shift to the consumer of your services. In the past, many organizations preferred to manage service orchestration themselves, but with the rapid growth in the number of applications, the popularity of APIs has skyrocketed. The challenge is that not every consumer can or wants to verify the accuracy of incoming data.

Is there a service layer that validates data?

Citizens are a perfect example of users you do not want to burden with verifying the correctness of the data they enter or receive. The same applies when applications exchange data with one another. In proper service orchestration, a service layer always validates the data being exchanged. If this is missing, systems may end up communicating incomplete information. The worst-case scenario is that at the end of a long process you discover that a service cannot be delivered after all, forcing the user or the system to start over. Or that a municipality ends up performing the wrong service entirely.

A framework puts you in control

By choosing a modern and flexible framework, you avoid the problems that come with incomplete or incorrect communication. This has always been important, but it has become essential now that systems and integrations grow more complex every year. With service orchestration, ideally through a framework such as the Frank!Framework, you maintain full control over your applications and the communication between them. This prevents errors and reduces tension between teams that are responsible for resolving them. A framework can even act intelligently. If a message fails three times, it automatically triggers a notification that prompts correction. Organizations can then adjust or redesign the patterns that caused the issue.

Service orchestration is a commitment to quality

Was everything better in the past? Of course not. Choosing service orchestration is choosing quality, control over processes, and satisfied users. That is precisely why the word service matters. When you choose a framework, you deliver on that promise.