<<What would service-oriented architecture be without standards? Not much. But is it any better off with the large number of SOA standards that exist? Java and the Java EE are feeling the backlash of a specification that is too complex with too many standards, as simpler scripting languages are making ground. SOA will suffer the same backlash if the number of SOA standards and specifications continues to grow in number and complexity. We already see the emergence of very simple REST Web services as IT professionals look for clarity through the morass of SOA standards. Simplicity is the pathway to adoption.
It is not easy to stem the tide of the creation of SOA standards. Many times the creation and support for standards is political, with certain standards backed by software vendors that have their own agenda. The standards that survive give their creators leverage, so the result is no shortage of standards being created and trying to be the fittest. Given the proliferation of SOA standards, there is an opportunity to take a step back and provide some perspective on all the SOA standards that exist. That is the purpose of this series of articles. We will explore the key SOA standards and try to identify which are likely to be adopted. Unfortunately this is not an easy task. Identifying only the most popular standards is not a popular thing to do as there will be a few that may feel snubbed for not being included. But there are so many SOA standards that exist and they are changing constantly, so discussing them all is practically impossible. The different versions of all the standards compound the complexity. This article still lists almost 70 individual standards, way too many for the average IT worker to be expected to keep abreast of. This series of articles tries to lend some perspective on the existing SOA standards. It tries to pick some winners or at least some standards to take note of. It will compare like-standards and try to separate the key differences between them. This first article in the series lays out the key SOA standards and standards organizations that back them. Future articles in this series will take a deeper dive into some of the most intriguing standards. We will examine categories of standards and try to understand their similarities and differences. Ultimately the goal is to provide some perspective on all the standards that exist and which may be most relevant for you and your organization. Some of the standards discussed here are technically not standards at all. They are a collection of specifications, APIs, protocols or just SOA concepts. To adequately compare SOA standards, they must be contrasted against not just other standards, but similar technical concepts as well. So I ask you to blur the distinction between standards, specifications, APIs and protocols for a few minutes so we can have a productive conversation on the topic. Major Standards Organizations To create so many standards there must be many standards organizations out there. Keeping track of these organizations can be confusing unto itself. So before we look at the standards, let's first review some of the major standards organizations that exist. Like the standards reviewed in this article, these are just some of the primary standards bodies. There are more in existence, but we kept it to just some of the major ones for simplicity. Not all of these standards organization participate in SOA standards, but they all do participate in technology standards. The people who participate in these organizations are credited for some of the great technology acronyms of our time! So let's get to know them a bit better.>> You can read the rest of this article at: <http://searchwebservices.techtarget.com/tip/0,289483,sid26_gci1244481,00.html?track=NL-451&ad=580290&asrc=EM_NLC_1031205&uid=5532089> Gervas
