Zapthink has a very specific take on SOA and integration. They state
the following:
- One goal of SOA - Integration as a byproduct of Service composition
- One Goal of legacy integration: building Services to support this
goal, NOT connecting systems to address a particular business need
Their primary point being that in a SO architecture, integration is
simply one of the steps or parts of a
composition, and it no longer gets seen as a distinct and separate set
of processes or technologies. In most cases,
integration efforts are designed to somehow "join" two or more disparate
systems. If however the point of interaction
is a higher level business service contract, the individual integration
points become less relevant.
You will always have the need to interact with remote systems, and the
lower level details will still be very similar to traditional
integration efforts, but these efforts will exist in a larger context,
the service model, that will hopefully not be directly impacted by the
individual integration efforts.
_mike
________________________________
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of
htshozawa
Sent: Sunday, December 21, 2008 6:43 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [service-orientated-architecture] Re: Yefim Natis is
sure that "SOA is integration"
IMHO, isn't integration just one objective of SOA. Isn't SOA an
architecture which will make integration easier.
I'm afraid that the best way to just eliminate redundency may
result
to just using products all from one vendor. I think there is a
need
to distinguish between migration to a single vendor and SOA.
I personally favor, create an architecture and a "suggested"
implementation plan, but to start the actual implementation with
a
single project.
H.Ozawa
--- In [email protected]
<mailto:service-orientated-architecture%40yahoogroups.com> , "Gervas
Douglas" <gervas.doug...@...> wrote:
>
> Here is what Anne's blog has to say on this:
>
> <<According to this report by Jack Vaughn at SearchSOA |
TechTarget,
> Yefim Natis asserted "SOA is integration" at last week's
Gartner
AADI
> Summit. The assertion produced the usual firestorm of
commentary on
> the Yahoo! SOA discussion list. Michael Poulin started the
discussion
> with this comment:
>
> "What can we do to slow down spreading such Integration SOA
madness?"
>
> My response followed suit:
>
> "While I agree with the last line ["SOA is less a technology
than
> a way to dependably extract business value from technology."],
I
> disagree with the leading one: "SOA is integration". Many
> organizations mistakenly perceive SOA as an integration
strategy.
But
> it is not. SOA is about architecture. To achieve SOA, you must
> rearchitect your systems. You must remove the deadwood. Every
> organization has too much stuff -- too many redundant
applications
and
> data sources. SOA is about cleaning house. You will not
simplify
your
> environment, reduce costs, and gain agility until you reduce
that
> redundancy."
>
> We have 17 messages in the thread so far, and our debate was
picked
up
> yesterday by Loraine Lawson at ITBusinessEdge. Loraine
admonished us
> for our "boil the ocean" perspective of SOA. As many SOA case
studies
> indicate, "SOA" works well for integration. I put "SOA" into
quotes,
> though, because I assert that these integration case studies
are not
> examples of service oriented architecture (SOA). The are
examples of
> service oriented integration (SOI). i.e., they are examples of
> projects that used service oriented protocols (e.g., WS-*) and
> middleware (e.g., ESB) to integrate two or more application
systems.
> But from an architectural perspective, you still have
monolithic
> systems bridged by integration middleware.
>
> Maybe I'm just being pedantic, but I think it's important to
> distinguish between integration and architectural activities.
It's
> fine to use service oriented middleware to implement
integration
> projects, but then you need to readjust your expectations.
Most
> organizations that I speak with say that the goals of their
SOA
> initiative are to reduce costs and increase agility.
Unfortunately,
> these organizations aren't likely to achieve these goals if
their
> projects only focus on integration. (Also see Chris Haddad's
> perspective on these success stories.)
>
> In the research that Chris and I conducted last year, we found
only
> four companies that had achieved real success in their SOA
initiatives
> -- i.e., they met their goals to reduce costs and increase
agility.
> Their successes were astounding, and they delivered positive
returns
> on investment in less than 12 months. In all cases these
companies
> focused on architecture -- not integration.
>
> Service oriented architecture is hard work. It's disruptive.
It's a
> political minefield. It involves going through the application
> portfolio and identifying redundant applications that can be
> decommissioned and replaced by a single service. But no one
ever
wants
> to open that can of worms. Many folks live by the adage, "If
it
ain't
> broke, don't fix it." There's way too much other stuff to do.
But
each
> additional application increases the annual maintenance and
operations
> budget. And for many of those applications, the cost of
maintaining
> the application exceeds the value it brings to the business.
It's
just
> good business sense to eliminant some of that redundancy. And
by the
> way, the CFO is going to be looking to reduce the IT M&O
budget this
> year. There is no better time to start an application
rationalization
> effort.>>
>
> You can find it at:
>
> http://apsblog.burtongroup.com/
<http://apsblog.burtongroup.com/>
>
> together with a photo of Anne looking very canny!!
>
> Gervas
>
> --- In [email protected]
<mailto:service-orientated-architecture%40yahoogroups.com> , "Steve
Jones"
> <jones.steveg@> wrote:
> >
> > Not really, the argument appears to be more about what is
integration,
> > for instance whether process and choreography count as
integration
> > and whether more dynamic interaction models count as
integration.
> >
> > I think that most people on this list agree that SOA is
> > _predominately_ a
governance/organisational/business/thinking
thing,
> > but that there are SOA _technologies_ which are related
directly
to
> > implementation. One of the on going challenges in this group
is
the
> > two different worlds of SOA.
> >
> > Far from being vacuous that is in fact the biggest and
oldest
> > challenge of IT and the point of SOA is that it can have the
> > discussion on both sides but its failing is that it still
hasn't
made
> > the difference clear.
> >
> > Define integration in a tight and specific way.
> >
> > Steve
> >
> >
> >
> > 2008/12/20 Nick Gall <nick.gall@>:
> > > Doesn't the suspicion that SOA is vacuous grow stronger
when
you see
> > > that we can't even agree about the relationship of SOA and
> > > integration?
> > >
> > >
> >
>
