Next week I'm in Vegas speaking at the Enterprise Architecture Conference (EAC). Seems that there are two types of conferences I'm speaking at these days. Those that are enterprise architecture focused, and thus want to understand SOA. And, those that are SOA focused, and thus want to understand enterprise architecture (or, sometimes not). The two notions are bound at the hip, for those of you who just tuned in.

So, is SOA in the mix of enterprise architecture, or is enterprise architecture in the mix with SOA? I guess it depends on where you're coming from in terms of perception. However, here is my take:

SOA is an architectural pattern, and thus something you do as part of enterprise architecture. Enterprise architecture is more holistic in nature, and has moved into the realm of management practices really. Thus, thus it makes since to leverage SOA as a mechanism under the umbrella of enterprise architecture. However, it's still architecture, unto itself.

One of the issues with SOA is that we have a tendency to define it too broad, or too narrow, depending on what you do. For instance, developers have a tendency to define SOA in much the same way as enterprise architecture, in essence considering them mutually exclusive. However, enterprise architects have a tendency to rationalized SOA as an existing practice, typically that's the not case.

The truth is somewhere in the middle. In my mind you have the concept of enterprise architecture which is pretty well defined these days. SOA, as I mentioned above, is an architectural pattern, but if implemented properly is actually a systemic change in how we do enterprise architecture, but does not replace it. Indeed, if done correctly, the architecture should actually bring some value to the business. That's not the case today within many enterprises.

Posted by Dave Linthicum on October 20, 2007 04:40 AM