The Web is delivering on every aspiration of SOA? Come on lets not run ahead of ourselves here....
The REST group does indeed focus on the technical design of systems where this group has tended to focus on architecture. Now most of the problem I face are in large scale enterprises where the detail of technical implementation is rarely the issue, its all about the human aspects and how people and companies are organised to deliver complex systems effectively over an extended period of time. I find it interesting that back in 2003 most SOA groups talked about Web Services and technical implementation and now 5 years on we are talking about the harder problems of organisational and cultural change, while REST is back again at the way to build a better wheel. The on going problem of IT is that people continue to think that a technology will deliver a massive step change in the success, maintainability and evolution of IT estates. Don't you find it depressing? I do. Steve 2008/5/23 Nick Gall <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > On Fri, May 23, 2008 at 1:35 PM, jeffrschneider > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> My concern is that WOA seems to focus on application architecture, >> where SOA has the opportunity to bring advances in enterprise >> architecture at the portfolio level. > > My concern with SOA is that it is SO conceptual that it ends up being > only an "aspirational architecture": a set of goals with absolutely no > insight/constraints on how to achieve them. See > http://ironick.typepad.com/ironick/2007/09/soa-sometimes-i.html . > SOA's goals are things like reuse/sharing, agility, loose coupling, > robustness, scalability -- but it provides no clue as to how to > achieve these timeless goals. And believe me, "make it a service with > a service interface" is not NEARLY enough of a clue. > > My deep satisfaction with WOA is that it provides a wealth of useful > constraints at an appropriate level of abstraction that actually help > architects/designs build systems that deliver on the aspirations of > SOA. Just look at the differences in the discussion threads between > this Yahoo group and the REST Yahoo group. The REST group has many > extremely pragmatic threads about how to actually design systems that > are sharable, agile, loosely coupled, robust, and scalable. > > I'd rather be part of a useful discussion of actual design advice in > the REST group even if it "seems to focus on application > architecture", than be part of the useless debates about what is SOA > in this group. > > Don't you find it interesting that the Web is delivering on all the > aspirations of SOA without ever needing to use the term? I do. > > -- Nick >
