During the earlier 90s, Object Orientated Programming (OOP) was hailed as a great improvement that would create wide spread re-use, faster development times, and better business alignment through models. OOP is still valued programming paradigm - it just isn’t discussed by business executives.
Fast forward to new millennium, service orientated architecture is hailed as the next big thing that will provide wide spread re-use, faster development times, instant interoperability, and (according to some vendors) bring peace to the galaxy.
As there are no silver bullets, will SOA go the way of OOP? Will SOA become a useful paradigm for software engineers and architects but not talked about by executives in the boardroom?
The answer depends on your perspective of a service. There are two very different ways to look at what a service means. There is the technical viewpoint that is rooted in web services and the business view point that a service is something you buy and sell.
From a technical viewpoint, SOA is nothing more than Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) but with open standards. I don’t want to diminish the importance of open standards (XML, SOAP, REST, WS-*, etc.). These standards are a great improvement over the old proprietary EAI tools that needed custom adapters for everything. But at the core, SOA is just a better mouse trap than its forerunners like EDI and EAI.
From the business viewpoint, SOA is more interesting. A service implies a defined service level which you can create an agreement that can be priced. By encapsulating a service in an SLA, business can offer services for a profit or outsource services with a clear ROI. The architecture part of SOA now covers SLA monitoring, billing, provisioning, etc. (all the aspects of classic OSS/BSS). Business executives will always be looking for ways to offer new services and or cut costs by using someone’s services.
In conclusion, the future of SOA really depends on your perspective.
(C) 2007-2008 Exalt Consulting Group
