A recent posting by Anne Thomas Manes of The Burton Group --
Has declared “SOA is Dead”, yet “long live service-orientation”. This has sparked quite a flurry in the blogosphere, on the Yahoo!Groups Service-orientated-architecture discussion group, and on SOASocial
Miko Matsumura has now labeled it “The Architecture Formerly Known as SOA” in his post “SOA is Dead! Long Live Whatever!” and he referenced this photo -
If I actually believed the controversial statements, I would prefer to call it the Architecture-until-recently-known-as-SOA -
However, based on my travel schedule over the past several months, which has been about 90% of my time going to meet with customers who are actively engaged in funded SOA projects, I would say the architecture-until-recently-known as SOA is still-alive-and-well.
But seriously folks….
Anne is a friend I have known for a long time and I continue to have a tremendous amount of respect for her, but I think she is off the mark on this one.
One could argue that there are discretionary projects being put on hold due to budgeting restrictions, but I haven’t run into that. If its happening then I doubt that has anything to do with whether they are SOA. How can you distinguish it anyway? Almost every major project in IT has some kind of SOA element to it these days.
I would think during a recession period, organizations would prefer to cut costs and the architecture until-recently-known-as SOA would be the solution to bring down application development and maintenance costs through increased reusability.
While the title of the blog is contentious - the thoughts presented towards the 2nd half of the article are not all that outrageous.
Towards the middle of the article, it starts to sing a common tune - "the requirement for service-oriented architecture is stronger than ever." So, in effect, she believes in the promise of services, but think its time to cut through the hype and define SOA as not just a software/technology, but a mindset which requires shift at organizational level as well. Well put, and I don't think you would find any disagreement.
So where is the dead part?
So..Ahhhh, what does it matter what we call it anyhow? OK, I’ll bite.. SOA is Dead. Long live service-orientation! ....and architectural patterns and practices to ensure that an IT organization has consistency across applications that are built using service orientation....Oh and I guess we'll need a means for ensuring that those services and their associated artifacts can be stored, versioned, secured, and accessable from a variety of interface technlogies and protocols. And we can't build it all from scratch so we'll need to be able to leverage our investments in existing application assets....then we'll need to compose services together, and perhaps even orchestrate the interactions between them....We'll also need to have a working plan in place to communicate between IT and the business to ensure that the right services are being built at the right level of granularity so that applications, which leverage those services, can have the flexibility and agility to meet the increasing and ever changing demands from the business. And a way to govern that process….
In another retort, Jack Vaughan of SearchSOA.com responded with -
It's good to have give-and-take and controversy. But this has fully played out in the SOA space. It's everyone's job to build good apps and good integrations. If you feel like discarding SOA as a buzz word, go for it – no need to 'kill' it. The claim that "SOA is a great failed experiment" is extraordinary hyperbole, and such hyperbole is the enemy of getting the job done.
In all fairness to Anne, during a conversation with me on Yahoo!Groups service-orientated-architecture discussion group she clarified her message when she said this -
My point is that IT people should stop using the term "SOA" when talking to business people. They should not try to sell architectural concepts to business people. They should focus on selling solutions that deliver value to the business. But architects should still apply service-oriented principles to the solutions that they deliver.
I for one am going to continue to call it SOA until I hear a better reason not to.
Dave
Comments (1)
SOA, service-orientation, or the cloud ... these are names I have heard in the recent convulsions of IT scrambling to reposition itself in the context of economic "restructuring".
Unfortunately, the all fail. And fail at the most basic level of relevance.
To varying degrees, all these terms talk to a method, mechanism or silver bullet that is in fact nothing more than a means to an end.
Long ago, I learned never to expect "business" to be able to make a mental leap >=2 steps beyond their current place in space and time. Or risk it.
David, it is good to know that you still have a rich pipeline of SOA engagements. I would presume however that your clientele is a somewhat self-selecting crowd.
On the whole -- and even though I am a card-carrying technologist/geek -- I absolutely sympathise with the view that SOA/SCM/etc is little more than new clothes for old ideas.
Does SOA guarantee better results on an arbitrary project?
No! Evidence to the contrary most well received of course.
Yes, I build SOA systems. But I also talk to my clients. They don't care. And they should not have to. That is my value add - intelligent application of technology, in ways they don't *have* to understand (even if they do).
I once had the 'pleasure' of watching 4 major vendors deliver their SOA pitch in a row. And not once did any of them relate SOA back to real value to the customer. They spent more time talking about how 'good IT governance' is required to make it work (i.e. that hoary business-IT alignment point of view that has been bashed around for decades, but few have been able to make work).
Any wonder why 'pragmatic' is going gang-busters in this economy, and why 'SOA' just doesn't cut it?
Posted by Paul Gallagher | February 1, 2009 3:07 AM
Posted on February 1, 2009 03:07