John is spot on with this observation:
I think that at some level, IBM sees SOA as a branding glue for their disparate and overlapping software offerings
IBM presented its "SOA Reference Architecture" to us, which was
basically an architecture that allowed IBM to position how about 40 of
its thousands of software products address the requirements of SOA.
Never forget: IBM's goal is to sell products. Therefore all of IBM's
marketing messages have a product focus. I think perhaps Phil Howard was more impressed than I was by IBM's story at their annual analyst conference (held in Rye Brook, NY, 30 Nov - 1 Dec). But I think we came away with a similar sense of IBM's strategy. IBM has fully embraced SOA, and SOA is the focus of all IBM software marketing messages. (See Phil's first article in the series, "IBM Mainlines on SOA": http://www.regdeveloper.co.uk/2005/12/05/ibm_soa/.)
I do have a bone to pick with Phil, though. In his fourth and final installment in the series (see "The problem with IBM's SOA message": http://www.regdeveloper.co.uk/2005/12/14/ibm_soa_message/), he says:
"The first and most obvious problem with IBM's take on SOA is that you
cannot simply go to IBM and say "I want to implement SOA in this part
of my business, what product do I need?" Or, rather, you can say that,
but the answer you get back will be horrendously complicated."
As Jason has so eloquently said, "SOA is something you do, not something you buy". So the idea that you should be able to go to IBM and get everything you need to do SOA is fundamentally flawed. But perhaps I'm misinterpreting Phil's point. He does redeem himself later in the article, when he talks about the need to bring in IBM IGS to help with the cultural issues of SOA. So let me give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that his issue with IBM's strategy has something to do with the fact that IBM has 4000+ software products, many of which overlap in terms of functionality.
Take, for example, IBM's ESB strategy. IBM provides two ESBs: WebSphere ESB (simple) and WebSphere Message Broker (advanced). By the way, they are based on completely different code bases.
Or IBM's mediation strategy: the 2 ESBs, WebSphere Process Server, IBM Tivoli Composite Application Manager for SOA (ITCAM), the DataPower appliances, Tivoli Federated Identity Manager, (and I'm sure there are half a dozen more).
It's nuts. And as Phil says, much too complicated. Now, you do need multiple types of mediators in a SOA, but IBM really should have coordinated its efforts and have its various mediators work as if they come from the same company. (Shockingly, the products that are best integrated with the others are the DataPower appliances -- the only products developed by a third party.)
But back to Henry's concern: Phil's assertion that SOA equates to EAI's hub-and-spoke architecture, and that ESBs provide the hub. (See "More on IBM and SOA": http://www.regdeveloper.co.uk/2005/12/06/ibm_soa_comment/)
Note that IBM never told us that SOA is a hub-and-spoke architecture. This is just Phil's interpretation of IBM's product architecture slideware. IBM, like most ESB vendors, graphically depicts an architecture in which the ESB provides the core communication infrastructure for the SOA, and it implies that all messages flow through the ESB. Therefore it's easy to misinterpret the image and come away with the sense that the ESB acts as the central hub of the environment.
But as I said before, IBM's architecture is all about product positioning, not about SOA architecture. IBM is still a little conflicted by what it means by ESB, too. Keep in mind that until September, IBM was still referring to ESB as an "architectural pattern", not as a product. Now that it has two products that it refers to as ESBs, IBMers sometimes get a bit confused by their own architecture. Quite a few IBMers still think of ESB as an architectural pattern, and the ESB products are just one of many products used to implement the pattern. But then you talk to the product marketing people, and they, or course, want to map real products to the architectural pictures.
But regardless of IBM's state of confliction, I heartily disagree with Phil's assertion that SOA is the modern-day equivalent of EAI/hub-and-spoke. On the other hand, most ESB products (not including IONA Artix, mind you) *are* the modern-day equivalent of EAI/hub-and-spoke. And I'm sure you'll be shocked (!) to hear that I am not a huge fan of ESBs -- for just that reason. (See my blog on the ESB market: http://atmanes.blogspot.com/2005/04/future-of-esb-market.html)
Nothing about SOA imposes an architectural requirement to route messages through a central hub. (Interesting aside -- IBM's new Service Component Architecture [SCA] has no requirement for a central hub, either.) I strongly recommend using mediation to manage message traffic and to implement policy enforcement points, but mediators are often scattered throughout the environment, and they often execute at the endpoints. So the idea that SOA = hub-and-spoke is very misguided.
Anne
On 12/14/05, John Kupyn <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
IBM claims, to its partners at least, to have 300 patents related to SOA. I think that at some level, IBM sees SOA as a branding glue for their disparate and overlapping software offerings (a point made before). However I also think that a everyone at IBM would agree that "SOA takes advantage of autonomous distributed services collaborating together in business processes."
Stay strong.
JK
William Henry < [EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:Okay so I read another article form the same author as my last post
about IBM's strategy/story.
in it the author claims that IBM equate SOA to EAI hub-and-spoke and
ESBs are the hub.
Article here:
http://www.regdeveloper.co.uk/2005/12/06/ibm_soa_comment/
My comments here:
http://www.ipbabble.com/2005/12/soa_does_not_equate_to_eai_hub.html
I hope all is not lost. It's enough to drive a person to drink .. and
it's only Wednesday.
Can we have a voice of reason here from Anne ( T.M.)? Any comments on
this Anne?
Regards,
William Henry
William G Henry
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.ipbabble.com
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