Motivated by a conversation he had at OpenWorld, Jeff Davies has embarked on a project on his SOA Thinker blog that offers great promise in improving communication around all things architecture. As Jeff explains:
Last week at Oracle Open World I had the opportunity to meet a number of folks interested in Oracle products in general and SOA in particular. One gentleman that I spoke with was very technical, but asked me to explain what I meant by, “point-to-point integration”. At first, the question surprised me. Then I realized that I use terms like “point-to-point” and, ‘EAI” so often that I’ve simply come to assume that everyone knew what they meant. This is a hazard of specialization in any field: you assume that everyone you speak with not only recognizes your particular jargon, but also that they have the same definition for those terms that you do.
Jeff's first installment in the project offers concise yet thorough definitions and comparisons of point-to-point integration, enterprise application integration, and SOA. Check it out: Architect's Dictionary (SOA Thinker)
