Ashley, I am not going to substitute Steve by no means but would like to give you my answers too. So, in sequence:
1) the answer is in your question - "Why are we doing THIS?" What's THIS? That is, WHAT is the first but it is not very principle requirement. 2) yes, while the type of particular business is not unique, the business has to distinguish itself from the similar ones (of that type) in the market, i.e. some unique and maybe crucial elements are there. This leads, again, to WHAT first. 3) I cannot comment on 3) but for me one of the types of the business service is a realization of business function; other ones are realizations of business features, business services and business processes 4) I read this not as a methodology for business strategy (consisting of plans, i.e. intentions and desires) but as a structure of existing organization of business entities, which explains what exists, why it exists and for whom. This is why strategy elements you listed are absent "... I am quite sure that value is only obtained from SOA by taking a business perspective, and driving the work from a clear articulation of the business objectives is the only way to succeed." - Welcome to the Club! - Michael ________________________________ From: Ashley at Metamaxim <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Saturday, January 10, 2009 10:24:14 PM Subject: Re: [service-orientated-architecture] SOA is Dead Steve Jones wrote: > Well my trite answer is "b(u)y my book". My longer one is that for me these have _always_ been what > I've seen as the services and the job of IT is to deliver as appropriate to that service. Well, I took your advice and read your book. It has lots of good stuff, and I agree that SOA must be business driven. Here are some thoughts: 1. I think that a prerequisite for any "service architecture" work must be an understanding of the need for (or possibility of) change to the business, and at least some consensus on what such a change might be. Moreover, there must be a credible story that SOA can be the path to achieving this change. In other words the business WHY should be first, not third as shown in the diagram on page 10. Otherwise I fear there will be a lot of senior level people in the room saying "Why are we doing this?" 2. The approach described in the book for defining an enterprise service architecture is essentially one of "top-down decomposition" . However, I suspect that structure of services for a given business is probably not unique, and its form will depend on the business rationale (drivers) for undertaking the whole exercise in the first place. This is another reason for putting the WHY first. 3. I was concerned that the definition of service too vague. The examples of Level 0, 1 service maps looked to me much like traditional functional decomposition diagrams. Is there any difference, at this level, between a "business service" and a "business function"? At the bottom of page 57 there is the rather alarming suggestion that "Customer" can be viewed as a service. I would be concerned about attempting to create a service architecture without a clear idea of what can qualify as a "service". 4. I some ways, what you describe looks like a methodology building a business strategy. However, there are other considerations that need to be included in the formulation of business strategy, such as: - Best practices on the industry - Competitive position, opportunities and threats - Assessment of corporate strengths, weaknesses and aspirations. I would think that these need to be considered in any exercise that has an enterprise-wide scope and impact. Notwithstanding these comments, I am quite sure that value is only obtained from SOA by taking a business perspective, and driving the work from a clear articulation of the business objectives is the only way to succeed. Rgds Ashley
