<<Last month, JP Morgenthal <http://www.jpmorgenthal.com/morgenthal/>
wrote on SearchSOA.com about the need for technology leaders to standup
for a no-nonsense architecture-first approach
<http://searchsoa.techtarget.com/news/article/0,289142,sid26_gci1347839,00.html>
to implementing crucial change. More recently we talked to Morgenthal
about other trends in software for business. On this occasion, we'd like
to share a bit from that conversation. We'd also like to take this same
occasion to introduce JP Morgenthal who will soon be an Expert on our
site, focused on areas of cloud computing, Software as a Service, and
SOA. Many of you who have followed XML, Java, SOA, and EAI in recent
years are familiar with this authority. Based in the Washington, DC
region, Morgenthal focuses on enterprise architecture, SOA, BPM and
cloud computing. He has written three books on integration, the most
recent being ''Enterprise Information Integration: A Pragmatic
Approach.'' <http://www.lulu.com/content/121621>
*SearchSOA* - Most people would agree that we are early into an era of
cloud computing that may be furthered or hindered by the economy. Google
and Amazon gained attention here, and established IT vendors are now
close on their heels. Are the various clouds oriented much at this point
more to developers or architects?
*JPM * - The current emphasis is split between new and efficient ways to
deliver information and ways to support business automation. Many
businesses, but especially the Global 2000, are struggling under the
weight of running their information technology infrastructure. The cloud
offers opportunity to offload some of that burden in exchange for a
reasonable expense.
*SearchSOA* - Do you have an opinion that SOA is good for the cloud, or
that there is some kind of special simpatico there.
*JPM* - Well, if you look at it one way, the cloud is an instance of an
SOA architecture. That makes a lot of sense if you look at things
architecturally. Everything is being offered as a service, so it meets
the criteria to be a service oriented architecture. But of course, for
some people, SOA is all about an enterprise service bus, Java
containers, and Web services. To those people cloud is completely
orthogonal to SOA.
It's worthwhile to consider classification schemes - that there is
enterprise SOA, infrastructure SOA, and application SOA. Cloud is
infrastructure SOA; you are using the concepts of service oriented
architecture to build reusable and 'meterable' or billable environments.
*SearchSOA*- Is it sometimes the case that people see what they want to
see in the cloud?
*JPM* - A lot of people are selling the cloud as a solution to so many
different problems in the enterprise. It really isn't going to take care
of everything in the way they are proscribing.
The idea, for example, that you are going to build something in a
vacuum, and at the end of the day you are going to put it out into the
cloud and that it is going to scale to the nth degree .. I think that is
a bit naïve. I think you have to build an application with scale in
mind. And you have to build it in a way that you understand what scale
means - what the impact of scale is going to do to your application.
Elasticity is a big selling feature of cloud providers, but who really
needs to scale at this level? As state governments, for example,
continue to make services available to citizens, you can start to see
the beginnings of something that needs that kind of scale. If I am
offering a consumer application, such as iTunes or YouTube, you need
dynamic and elastic scaling. But I just don't see corporations putting
their homegrown or ERP applications in a cloud. That's where the selling
of the cloud like a snake oil salesman starts to come in.
You see, the whole thing is oriented around expense management and lower
cost. If you look at the numbers, the numbers just really don't make
sense when you consider that most people today are leasing their
hardware and have sunk capital expenditures in disaster recovery,
backup, power, etc. If they need more, but don't want to sink more
capital, then the IaaS could be attractive. If there's an application
that serves my enterprise needs and offered as SaaS, then I don't need
to bring it in and manage it internally, that also is an attractive
situation.
Additionally, there are issues with interoperability. If I go into the
cloud I have to worry about vendor lock in. I don't want to get to the
situation of not being able to move it and all of a sudden my cloud
provider starts upping the prices on me. Moreover, metering is infantile
in its maturity, which makes planning difficult. The 'Amazon bill' can
be hard to anticipate.
*SearchSOA* - Sometimes we lump together software as a service and
cloud. Is that wrong?
*JPM* - Software as a service is an aspect of cloud. It is one of the
services you may rent. Just as you may rent 'database as a service' or
'business intelligence as a service' or an entire stack or 'platform as
a service' all the way up to the application. You may rent hardware,
saying 'I just want CPU power.'
Don't get me wrong - this thing is formulating. It's a very early
market. There is very little maturity in this market, which is starting
to go through its hype cycle, and then it will go through its shake out.
Given the economy, the shake out cycle could go by very quickly.
*SearchSOA* - Here is a scenario. The CEO or CIO comes in and says 'I
want to do an analysis on what we can do with a cloud ... looking
specifically at cost savings. What questions should an enterprise
architect ask when reviewing a proposal for a cloud initiative?
Especially when the chief may have already decided this is the way to go.
*JPM* - Performance, security and hidden expenses are important. But you
are not always going to get the CIO to respect things you say about
technology. Sometimes it's a question of whether you know how to manage
up. Remember: it is the technologist's job to make sure this stays up,
and there is no business justification if this thing crashes and burns.
And sometimes, the weapon you have in your arsenal, in all fairness, is
fear. When asked 'what if we go to the cloud' say 'mmm, that's a great
question, we might save a lot of money,' but also ask 'what if our data
was stolen?' It's unfortunate, but that is [a way to proceed] given what
the industry has become.>>
You can read this at:
http://searchsoa.techtarget.com/news/article/0,289142,sid26_gci1350421,00.html?track=NL-130&ad=692573&asrc=EM_USC_6076866&uid=5532089
I like this! Here is a man who recognises that SOA is not confined the
Enterprise Apps layer.
Gervas
- [service-orientated-architecture] Q&A: JP Morgenthal... Gervas Douglas
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