This seems typical of the SOA misinformation in the industry, and shame on Gardner for helping to spread it. Amazon has a useful collection of web services, but no SOA influence is perceivable in their external interfaces. In fact, at least as of a year ago they weren't even doing a very good job with web services - they were returning SOAP responses that didn't match the schemas in their own WSDL service contracts.
It may be that this is just an ugly external interface to a clean internal architecture - but I very much doubt it. - Dennis Gervas Douglas wrote: > Here is a report on a recent speech by Vogels on the Amazon system: > > <<For architects who believe detailed advanced planning will be the > key to a successful SOA implementation, an alternative approach is > offered by Werner Vogels, vice president, world-wide architecture and > CTO at Amazon.com. > > "Amazon does a lot of research, but we don't call it research, we call > it development," Vogels said in a keynote at the opening the Gartner > Inc. Enterprise Architecture Summit this week. He offered an almost > anti-model for SOA development that includes hard work, failures, more > hard work, successes and more hard work. > > He laced his presentation with tongue-in-cheek humor starting with the > title: "Order in the Chaos: Building the Amazon.com Platform." > > Vogels pointed out that in 1995 when Amazon started with a simple Web > ordering application running on a single server, the architecture was > so simple it was literally drawn on a cocktail napkin. There was no > grand plan to build an SOA platform that today features as many as 150 > Web services on its home page alone. > > The massive online retail Web site evolved from a modest attempt to > sell books on the Web, into this year's version that hosts 1 million > merchant partners ranging from small used book stores to Target Inc., > which in virtual retailing is now bigger than Wal-Mart, Vogels said. > > "We more or less naturally became a platform," Vogels said of the > technological evolution. > > In a brief history of Amazon's technology, he showed how one server > for databases of customer information and inventory grew to two > servers, one for customer info and one for inventory. As the business > got bigger with more customers and more products, more and more > database servers were added. > > When database performance became an problem, a fast talking salesman > told Amazon to buy a mainframe. Big iron did not prove to be the > answer, a technology misstep that still leaves Vogels chagrined. > > "This is an Internet company in 1999 and we bought a mainframe," he > said. When it failed to meet the scalability, reliability and > performance needs after a year, Amazon pulled the plug on that hardware. > > Vogels said there is a lot of talk about what is the "secret sauce" > that makes Amazon so popular. In his opinion, "The secret sauce is > operating reliably at scale." > > To serve its 60 million customers and keeping them all happy requires > scalability and reliability, that may go beyond what most SOA > developers and architects need to factor into their platforms, Vogels > said. For example, while most customers may feel they're buying a lot > of stuff if they have 20 books and gadgets in their online shopping > cart, he said Amazon has to be prepared for the one customer in 60 > million with 20,000 items in their shopping cart. > > After the mainframe debacle in 1999, Amazon reached the point around > 2001 where the only way to achieve the reliability and scalability it > needed was to use Web services to insulate the databases from being > overwhelmed by direct interaction with online applications. > > "We were doing SOA before it was a buzz word," the Amazon CTO said. > > Unlike most speakers at analyst conferences, Vogels doesn't mince > words as to whether SOA is a good strategy or a workable theory. > Upfront, he told his audience "Service orientation works." > > For all the talk of how Amazon is succeeding with blade servers > running Linux, the CTO says, "We never could have built that platform > without service orientation." > > Giving a glimpse into how the developers at Amazon are organized, > Vogels said it involves teamwork. Each Web service has one team of > developers responsible for it. And they are not just responsible for > writing the service and then tossing it over the wall for testing and > eventual entry into production where some poor maintenance geek has to > look after it. > > The Amazon CTO tells his Web services team members: "You build it. You > own it." > > That means the team is responsible for its Web service's on-going > operation. If a Web service stops working in the middle of the night, > team members are called to fix it. > > This policy that there is "no wall at the end of development" > encourages developers to make their Web services as bulletproof as > possible. > > Since complexity is notoriously the enemy of reliability, Vogels > encourages developers to keep their Web services simple. > > "Simplicity is the hardest design criteria," Vogels said. "Designing a > service we ask constantly: Is this the simplest service we can build?" > > Another design criterion the chief technology officer emphasizes is > not getting attached to any one technology or standard. Amazon > developers start with what the customer needs and then work back to > what technology will work for them, Vogels said. > > This includes the implementation of Web services standards. If one > retail partner wants to use SOAP and another wants to use > Representational State Transfer (REST), they each get the standard > they request. > > "Our developers don't care if it's REST or SOAP," Vogels said. "It's > all about customers.">> > > You can find this at: > > <http://searchwebservices.techtarget.com/originalContent/0,289142,sid26_gci1195702,00.html?track=NL-110&ad=556382> > > Gervas > > > > > > > > > > > > Yahoo! Groups Links > > > > > > > ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Yahoo! Groups gets a make over. 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