I actually agree with you there, I'm just not sure about "Design" instead because of its implications in the IT lifecycle, in the business sense of "product design" then I'd agree with the term but unfortunately in IT design has come to mean technical solution oriented rather than applying at all levels. i.e. today its Architecture->Design->Implementation, whereas in buildings you could argue its Design->Architecture->Engineering->Implementation.
So SO as a paradigm makes sense, but the word "Design" with SOA just jars a bit because of what the 'A' stands for. Damn the English language. Steve On 29/01/07, Eric Newcomer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
I'm with you on this except for the 'paradigm' part, which I have mentioned to the RM authors. Well, some of them anyway. SO is the paradigm, not SOA. Eric [EMAIL PROTECTED] <jones.steveg%40gmail.com>] wrote: I'm all for simple, but not for the program and software bit :) The RMs Service Oriented Architecture is a paradigm for organizing and utilizing distributed capabilities that may be under the control of different ownership domains. It provides a uniform means to offer, discover, interact with and use capabilities to produce desired effects consistent with measurable preconditions and expectations. Might be a little formal but if you reword it to SOA is about bringing together different groups and the services they provide, it provides a consistent way to handle the complexities of getting distributed groups with different objectives working together. And a service? Its just a collection of "what we do". I've used one a few times about SOA and OO. OO worked because an object represents a real world "thing" SOA works because a service represents a real world "what we do". If we limit SOA to just software then its never going to scale up to the large enterprise problems. Steve On 25/01/07, Alex Hoffman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]<alex.hoffman%40gmail.com>> 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] <selwyn%40akintola.net>> 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....
