Folks that have heard me talk or have debated the finer points of SOA with me know that I am prone to say that the Achilles Heel of SOA is the 'data problem'. I figured that I would finally blog about it.

 

Here is the basic issue - business services own entities.

 

These entities often reside in existing systems - your CRM system, or your HR system, your ERP system etc. They often have different schemas and have usually evolved independently of other similar and sometimes duplicated entities.

 

The challenge is to harmonize these entities. The spectrum ranges from what we at Microsoft call Entity Aggregation through the space that is known as EII all the way through to Master Data Management.

 

So, next time you hear someone talk about SOA ask them about their data architecture and how they harmonize entities across their services.