* Service-oriented architectures
Today, I wanted to point you to a two-part series we recently ran on service-oriented architectures.
If you buy into the hype SOA’s are the next coming of sliced bread. Indeed the potential benefits of such systems sound good.
We took a look at what was really going on. In the first part we dismantled the hype machine to see where SOAs really stood. SOA concept is one in which components, whether they are full applications or single-function code such as a mortgage calculator, can be shared, reused and loosely coupled into composite applications across a distributed network.
“I call it spaghetti-oriented architecture,” said James Kobielus, an analyst with Burton Group. “It’s this mess of messages. SOA relies on messaging-oriented interaction among endpoints. How can you manage all this, how can you design it all, optimize it all, track it all, secure it all, this mess of messages, this spaghetti?”
The point is that a lot of work needs to be done to service orient applications and networks. Work to define and execute an overall strategy, to train developers, to retrofit existing applications, to implement standards, to build new layers of middleware, to define new levels of management, to devise new security defenses, and to construct methods to track it all.
Meanwhile, there are users that have gone down the SOA road. In part 2 of our series we took a look at some big users doing SOAs to see what the real story is. For example, we talked to the Hartford Financial Services Group who service-oriented the company’s core agent application. To preserve the application, a team of nearly three dozens architects set out to rebuild it by creating a series of Web services that tap into back-end legacy systems. “Now we just change our services” that make up the SEMCI application.
As part of the work, the group also created an SOA reference architecture that would become a foundation for the company’s entire Property and Casualty business.
There’s plenty more good information where that came from. See: https://www.nwfusion.com/news/2004/110804soapart2.html
