Real World SOA | David Linthicum | InfoWorld | Web 2.0 = The Global SOA | January 4, 2006 06:20 AM

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Web 2.0 = The Global SOA

January 04, 2006 | Comments: (0)

Web 2.0 = The Global SOA

With all of the talk about Web 2.0, I was wondering were the heck that term came from. The term Web 2.0 was originally coined by O'Reilly's Dale Dougherty to describe the forces behind the huge post-dot-com success of Internet companies like Google, eBay, Amazon, and iTunes, as well as noncommercial, emergent Web-born creations such as Wikipedia and BitTorrent. Clearly, the Web has become the platform of choice for many organizations, and with success of SaaS (Software as a Service) companies such as Salesforce.com and NetSuite, this is quickly becoming true. Also, we are clearly moving from dynamic visual interfaces to dynamic non-visual services, all accessible over the Internet. All of this is Web 2.0, or better yet the Global SOA.

So, what does this mean to those standing up SOAs today? It's clear that many of the services we consume and mange going forward will be services that exist outside of the enterprise, such as subscription services from guys like Salesforce.com, or perhaps emerging Web services marketplaces from guys like StrikeIron. This is outside-in SOA, in essence reusing service in an enterprise not created by that enterprise, much as we do today with information on the Web. Thus, those services outside of the enterprise existing on the Internet create a global SOA, ready to connect to your enterprise SOA, perhaps providing more value. This is nothing new, by the way, we been talking Global SOA for some time now, at least the notion, we are just seeing bits and pieces appearing today.

So, how do you prepare yourself? I have a few suggestions:

First, accept the notion that it's okay to leverage services that are hosted on the Internet as part of your SOA. Normal security management needs to apply, of course.

Second, create a strategy for the consumption and management of outside-in services, including how you'll deal with semantic management, security, transactions, etc.

Finally, create a proof of concept now. This does a few things including getting you through the initial learning process and providing proof points as to the feasibility of leveraging outside-in services.

Don't miss this wave. This is the big one.

Posted by Dave Linthicum on January 4, 2006 06:20 AM

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COMMENTS

Dave,

Right on, I've been expousing a very similar view lately and it really seems to resonate with people.

And I agree with you that getting folks to establish genuine trust with services on the Internet will be critical and a big leap for many. But that was always the not-invented-here part that SOA users had to get over anyway.

Good luck and glad to see other folks are spreading the message.

If you're curious, see my SOA Web Services Journal cover story on the Global SOA in the hyperlink of my name below, or here:

http://webservices.sys-con.com/read/164532.htm

Best,

Dion Hinchcliffe
Sphere of Influence

Posted by: Dion Hinchcliffe at January 7, 2006 03:36 PM

Dave,

Let me please play the devil's advocate. It is not because I do not believe in or support SOA or Web Services. I really do. And I appreciate your personal income into the methodology development very much.

It is because I am concerned about the rate of the industry's SOA adoption. We have created a great hype about SOA even before we have created a mature SOA definition and methodology. It still means different thing for different people. For example, in a recent Weblog post, Infravio's Miko Matsumura, who chairs the OASIS SOA Adoption Blueprints committee, points out that SOA is in the eye of the beholder, and not for anyone else to judge whether it's right or wrong. For me, this point of view is not just wrong but is very unfortunate. Because if this beholder is a company's CXO, it means for her that SOA is not mature enough for a serious implementation.

If we start using the Global SOA term now, we maybe, once again create a premature hype, which portraits SOA as kind of Universal Theory of Everything. And here are my points for being very cautious:
* Web Services, as of now, are not the best technology for implementing SOA. E.g. they give up one of the main achievements of SOA: The service consumer and the service producer are no longer required to register themselves with each other. Instead, the may register itself with an intermediate agent - Enterprise Service Bus (ESB). In Web Services case,though service consumer has to have the producer's address (URI). This makes those producers much harder replacable;
* An ESB is the vital part of SOA. However, the Internet does not have yet all necessary features of ESB;
* The usage of services external to an enterprise is not a new thing by itself. If an Internet-based service producer is a trusted source, with which an enterprise has a contract (like Saleforce.com) then it is viable from business point of view. But it should be considered on case-by-case basis. We cannot consider just searching the internet globally for discovering something that looks like a service we need.

So, what Global SOA really means? And do we need another buzz-word?

Sincerely and respectfully,

Wolf Rivkin,
Chief Architect, B-Wave Software
wolfrivkin@b-wavesoft.com
www.b-wavesoft.com

Posted by: Wolf Rivkin at January 11, 2006 11:59 AM

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