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SOA is SOBoring

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In the toilet (bathroom in the US) here at Microsoft in the UK the mirrors have had a transfer applied that looks like a picture frame with a title underneath that says “The next big thing”. Whilst I am a little puzzled as to the meaning of this in the loo (it makes it look as if I am the next big thing whilst I am washing my hands and whilst I have put on weight recently this seems a tadge cruel) I do know what the next big thing is; it’s Services Oriented Architecture.

Now don’t get me wrong; I think SOA is very important. SOA is all about a model of independent business functionalities or services working together which is a key concept in architecture. It’s simple, elegant, functional and useful. It has been something that has been around in Architecture (as opposed to Marketecture) for a while, indeed I have seen an excellent SOA with virtual services bus, activity and resource based costing and scheduling and full auditing implemented on a mainframe platform some 15 years ago and still in use by a major airline today. I have also seen a fantastic SOA implemented by a major Swedish machine tools manufacturer on Windows 2000. Brilliant! However SOA has reached that point in it’s lifecycle where it degrades, as all good ideas seem to, into high flying marketing and low level nit picking.

I am on an internal Microsoft alias about SOA and a discussion has been raging about the differences between SOA and ESB which reminds me a lot of the arguments of old in the OO world about inheritance, polymorphism etc. Just as we ended up with the OO police we are soon going to get an SOA police who have long lists of things that make up an SOA and if you don’t meet them you are not “SOA compliant”. I can hear the sound of the technical / religious nutters starting to twitch at their keyboards already.

At the other end of the spectrum I can see marketing groups starting to build SOA “campaigns”. Soon we will have commercials promising that if you implement an SOA then all your IT problems will disappear overnight (as we have had with so many technologies before, yawn). Then we will have ads with small children educated by SOA (have you seen the IBM open software ads with the small boy? What has that got to do with open software? Mind you Microsoft’s ads with the little girl coming out of school don’t have a lot to do with Windows either). Next it will be “SOA solves world hunger and brings peace”. Give me a break.

I say enough! Let us not over hype or over engineer SOA. It is:

· A Model or abstraction

· Of Independence or Loosely coupled

· And Business level functionalities or services

No more and no less. It IS important; it is a vital addition to the architect’s toolbox and a valuable way of thinking about and solving IT problems. It’s not THE answer to all IT’s problems or the rallying cry for a techojihad. Let’s learn about it, use it and get on with the fun stuff; Architecting!

Comments

  • Anonymous
    February 13, 2004
    While the idea of SOA is not new (at least it was new to me), I agree that it has great potential for usage. I'm still havng conversations with people about what it means to them, and compare that with what you read online.....usually very different. I can see where this brings up great debate.

    I find the use of the word "Technojihad" a bit distrubing. For some reason it brings to mind a large number of people that wear trendy glasses, have laptops under their arms (or tablets...:) ), and develop plots to rid the internet of AOL users by removing all occurances of "AOL Keyword" from every site, commerical, print or post.
  • Anonymous
    May 01, 2004
    Micheal,
    Really sorry - but I've jumped on the Bandwagon. But I'm hoping it's going to cure my childrens hunger, and my car needs new tyres !
    What makes me really worried is the the domain I've got was still available ??
    Oh well, my hit counter is only registering me at the moment, but if you take a look you'll add 1 to it.
    Sorry there's not much content, but these things take time.
    I was inspired by a Microsoft publication mind you, it arrived in a huge bubble wrap bag, to keep it nice and safe on it's journey to my house. It's called Journal 2, from you Architecture site.
    Unfoutunately I gave my full address in the domain registration - I'm now expecting a raid from the SAO Police !
    Clive.