I did participate in that agility vs. reuse debate last Friday with eBizq.net. Elizabeth Book was the host, with me, Ronan Bradley, Neil Ward-Dutton, and Joe McKendrick, all SOA bloggers. You can download the Podcast here.

The Podcast was looking to shed more light on the value of reuse in the context of SOA. I'm not sure it was much of a debate, in fact plus or minus 10 percent I think that Ronan, Neil, Joe, and myself agreed that agility was the golden goose of SOA, with reuse a linked benefit.

I thought that Joe's blog did a good job in defining the Podcast.

"Dave Linthicum agreed that reuse was not the endgame of SOA, but rather a means to take 'architectures are completely unworkable messes for the most part' and 'turn them into something that's better aligned with business, that's changeable as the business needs change, and something that's workable and cost effective in the organization. ...Reuse is going to be a side benefit of that.'"

Remember, the value of SOA is the ability to get your enterprise in an agile changeable state, and thus better able to align with business. Most IT departments can't do this today, and that's limiting their value to the business. That's how this SOA stuff, which is very expensive, makes you money. Reuse is possible, also valuable, and will occur if you do SOA right. Keep that in mind.

Posted by Dave Linthicum on October 27, 2006 05:42 AM