I must say, Alex, I do like this! It has the merit of adhering to the KISS (keep it simple stoopid) principle, a principle of great value to simple non-techies like myself. Another advantage is that it does not necessarily involve "business" factors. Now I know the word "business" in enterprise architecture is not always used in the strict commercial sense, but there is no logical reason perforce why SOA principles should not apply to, say, abstruse technical control or embedded systems. Equally there is no reason why they should be confined to the large IT systems used for running major companies and other mammoth organisations. I have been of the opinion for some time that we will see SOA principles filter down increasingly to the workgroup LAN and then, why not, to the workstation or smartphone level. This does not presuppose using the elaborate high-overhead mechanisms used for enterprise systems to implement it.
Perhaps at workgroup LAN level Jini would really come into its own: http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/jini_javaspaces/message/671 . I would just like to add one small point to Alex's elegantly simple definition: a service can in turn be a client to another service. Gervas --- In [email protected], "Alex Hoffman" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > One of my New Year resolutions is to try to talk in plain english, and not > descend into a cycle of producing ever more abstract definitions. Abstract > definitions that may be accurate, but have absolutely no value or meaning to > a "normal" person in our industry. So here's my attempt at #51... > > An SOA is simply a software architecture based on services. What's a > service? A software program that is intended to be used by another program. > > Alex Hoffman > > On 1/23/07, Selwyn Akintola <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > Back in November as part of my MSc. research I posed the > > question "What is SOA?". The objective was to derive a definition of > > SOA that I could use to inform the rest of my studied. Since then I > > have received approximately 50 definitions of SOA from various > > sources including from members of this group. First off let me thank > > you all for the valuable and insightful input. When I asked the > > question I also committed to being my definition of SOA back to this > > group. Her it goes SOA in less than 100 words- > > > > "SOA is a business centric software design paradigm characterised by > > the utilisation of well defined standards and protocols to create > > services and compose applications from services. SOA mandates that > > services are loosely coupled and communicate through the exchange of > > messages thereby allowing resource sharing and reuse. > > Interoperability and platform independence allow the composition of > > applications from services created using heterogeneous resources and > > hosted on heterogeneous technology platforms. SOA is a long term > > organization wide cross functional collaborative activity whose ROI > > will be achieved by service reuse and efficiencies gained by better > > alignment IT with business." > > > > Please fill free to comment and critically review. > > > > I am now looking at SOA adoption rates, SOA benefits realization > > experiences and the relationship between the semantic web (web 2 or 3 > > or whatever it is now) and SOA. > > > > Once again thank you for the input. > > > > Selwyn Akintola > > > > > > > > > > Yahoo! Groups Links > > > > > > > > >
