We propose to take an iterative approach to testing this hypothesis, wherein we intend to a) identify an initial class of existing systems that are to be integrated, b) identify specific scenarios of integrated use of these systems, c) develop techniques for inter-service and intra-service interoperability; d) implement these techniques in a bus supporting replication, migration, and security; e) provide mechanisms for interfacing with the bus; and f) use the bus to implement the identified scenarios, and g) compare the flexibility, automation, and performance of the bus with existing tools based on the scenarios methods identified in (b). The approach is iterative because our experience in using the software bus and existing heterogeneous tools to build new applications will help us identify new integration scenarios, which in turn will help us redesign the bus.
In the rest of this section, we briefly explain how we propose to take these steps: