This series of posts will be dedicated to “Demystification” to address the lack of clarity in this space & how various vendors & organizations are conf-using 3 letter acronyms.
So, I notice that a lot of these 3 letter acronyms (well even some 4 letter words.. no no.. not curse words.. some of those too.. But, that’s a conversation for a happy hour) are being thrown around as Magic Pills. Enterprises are sold on them and do not really have a clear bearing on them. A large part of the credit for this goes to the so called ‘market leaders’ in the space. Note, I mentioned ‘market leaders’ and not ‘thought leaders’. The market leaders are the ones who know how to create hype & hoopla and catch the ‘unaware’ and put them on a ride on the rapids in a raft.. put a bunch of ‘consultants’ on the raft who dont really understand it and start billing the client for every rock & rapid they pass through, no matter how unpleasant the ride & ofcourse, the fact that there is no resulting outcome & navigation around where this “should” go.
Taking SOA and starting the demystification process.
SOA – Service Oriented Architecture(s) – as it is popularly known. Everyone is SOA-izing, everything from ERP to Development tools, from Business & Technology Integration to Data & Firewall appliances to even some networking devices.
It’s not a bad trend but to what end?
The most prominent SOA definitions I see in the market (1, 2, 3, 4, ) revolve around something to the tune of…
“A mature technology integration architecture that evolves beyond and supercedes the Enterprise Integration space (EAI, EII, TI, Middleware) “
Is that true? To some extent.. that this is only a part of the Service Orientation (SO) process in an Enterprise. By itself, it does not good since the same traditional issues still arise.
What it does add is the fact that the next generation of Technology Architecture & Standards Stack is better designed to be “moulded” for Enterprise Changes. But, again its only the clay and a large part of the moulding has to be done, correctly.
So, what is SOA?
Let’s look at some of the Myths & Half-truths around SO.
Myths, Misconceptions & Half-truths. (color coded).
- SOA = Web Services. Wrong!
- SOA = The new EAI, EII
- SOA = Service Call equivalent of RPC / Publish & Subscribe
- SOA = An enabling technology architecture; The use of standards based protocols for integration & messaging; largely web services
- SOA = ESB; Wrong! You can’t get SOA in a box.
- SOA Product Vendors & their promises: What they tell you and What they don’t.
- SOA = Agility, Flexibility, Visibility, Adaptability
- SOA = Makes everything easy, The holy grail, The final destination, Nirvana. It’s a Gray Area
I guess now the critical question is.. What is Service Orientation (SO)?
SO – is an Orientation process, a Change Vehicle for the Enterprise Business Architecture (not to be confused with only the technology architecture or the Process Architecture.. it composes anything & everything about the Enterprise), and in some senses it is ‘Mutant DNA introduced into an Enterprise that allows it to change shape and form rapidly in response to its environment’
We will take a couple of different cracks at ‘SOA’
‘Services Orientation Architecture’ – Orientation of all the services of an Enterprise internally & externally to better meet strategic goals.
‘Service Oriented Architecture’ – Servicing the customer, the entire value chain
‘Services Orientation & Alignment’ – It is about how the enterprise services its customers and markets and how those services are aligned for maximum value
This is what I really think defines SOA.
Finally, the 2 definitions that make it simple & clear..
Business
A business architecture that orients itself i.e. its processes & services, for optimal strategic execution to better service the enterprise value chain
Technical
An architecture capable of delivering processes, services & information visibility in a fast, flexible and adaptive manner bringing closer “strategic & tactical” alignment of processes executed with the support of a variety of existing/ available resources (i.e. people, data, business, technology)
There you have it.. SOA de-mystified… albeit at a Higher level. There is more to come. The Demystification begins..
