As another long-time integration practitioner and consultant I too have seen pockets where integration is (yet another) dirty word. But the majority of folks I've worked with didn't seem to care one way or the other. They neither thought it was the greatest thing since the move away from green screen nor thought it was force-fitting, or messy, or madness or any of the presumptions that many in this group seem to have.
Ad-hoc integration can go horribly wrong. Point-to-point integrations can be quite constraining. On the other hand, I've seen successful companies being quite effective with such approaches--and they get along just fine. That said, I'm very familiar with all that can go wrong when bad integration practices run amok. My point isn't that "integration is good." My point is that not everything under the integration label is inherently bad. Ad-hoc integration isn't inherently bad. It just is. People have angst about integration because often the end-points are difficult to interact with. So the integration effort has to touch them too (or use some sort of adaptive layer). Integration efforts often do too much "in the middle" making life far more difficult than need be. Unguided integrations can lead to a spaghetti mess of intertwined components, with data and processes winding there way through an incoherent maze of apps and interfaces. The integration effort, the act of connecting components that haven't been connected yet, is much easier if the end-points were designed from the beginning to be connected to other, independent (and possibly currently unknown) components. It is much easier if there is an overall vision of landscape and principles guiding when and how components are to be connected. That's where SOA comes in. While integration may be a dirty word for many in this group, my opinion is that SOA intends to make integration of components (providers, clients and other elements) as easy as possible. SOA is, from one point of view, an integration approach guided by principles (loose coupling, atomic interactions with end-points, explicit interfaces, discoverable, etc.) Each of those principles are the "best of integration" practices that have been gleaned through years of trial and error. But perhaps it's time for someone to write a blog titled "Integration is dead"--not the concepts, just the term. ;-) -Rob --- In [email protected], "Anne Thomas Manes" <atma...@...> wrote: > > The disconnect comes from context. The word "integration" in the > non-IT world is a warm and fuzzy thing. But the word has a very > different meaning and generates extreme angst in the IT world. It > refers to force-fitting things together that were never intended to > get along. > > Anne > > On 1/7/09, JP Morgenthal <jpmorgent...@...> wrote: > > Alex, > > > > Thanks for saving me the hassle of explaining. Now I get to just +1 > > your response. > > > > JP > > > > > > On Wed, Jan 7, 2009 at 4:53 AM, Alexander Johannesen > > <alexander.johanne...@...> wrote: > >> On Wed, Jan 7, 2009 at 05:31, Nick Gall <nick.g...@...> wrote: > >>> My point is that in common usage, "integration" is rarely pejorative and > >>> usually connotes the concept of being designed to work together from the > >>> start -- NOT retrofitting the ability to work together. > >> > >> As someone who's spent 14 years in companies doing integration, I'd > >> say you live in a fantasy world. :) Integration projects are often > >> very messy things, so even if the pipe-dream of everything being > >> designed to work together from the get go is there, it is very far > >> from reality. Besides, are you trusting sales materials from BMW more > >> than integration practitioners? > >> > >>> Rather than expect > >>> everyone to intuit your interpretation of "integration", why not just > >>> modify > >>> it with an adjective like "ad hoc" or "post hoc" to be clear, ie "ad hoc > >>> integration". > >> > >> Because it ain't used that way? :) Whenever anyone say "we need to > >> integrate our system with this other system" people shiver and sweat > >> and hope that they're not part of that project, because down that path > >> lies madness, ad-hoc or not. > >> > >> Perhaps a bit overstated, but "integration" is not a feel-good word > >> (in my world of enterprise consultancy services). > >> > >> regards, > >> > >> Alex > >> -- > >> ---------------------------------------------------------- > >> Project Wrangler, SOA, Information Alchemist, UX, RESTafarian, Topic Maps > >> ------------------------------------------ http://shelter.nu/blog/ > >> -------- > >> > > >
