http://blogs.msdn.com/nickmalik/archive/2006/12/09/should-soa-be-top-down-or-bottom-up.aspxIt's the age of the mash-up and mix-in and composed service... yet I continue to wonder if we shouldn't still be developing the SOA, at least seeding the initial SOA framework, in a top-down way. Just as the Internet blossomed only after the standardsen-USCommunityServer 2.1 SP1 (Build: 61025.2)http://blogs.msdn.com/nickmalik/archive/2006/12/09/should-soa-be-top-down-or-bottom-up.aspx#1251491Sun, 10 Dec 2006 12:45:19 GMT91d46819-8472-40ad-a661-2c78acb4018c:1251491Richard Veryard<p>Some people argue for a fractal notion of the service economy. Among other things, this implies that the service portfolio should have a good mixture of different sizes / granularities.</p> <p>In city planning, small retail outlets such as cafes and card shops may have less individual weight than a major retailer such as Wal-Mart. But collectively, they may be at least as important. One of the challenges for city planning is to achieve a good balance between the large few and the many small. </p> <p>The terms &quot;top-down&quot; and &quot;bottom-up&quot; can be interpreted in different ways. If an architect only worries about fitting the big pieces together, and assumes that the small pieces will somehow look after themselves in the remaining space, this sounds like one version of &quot;top-down&quot;.</p> <p>What if the architect concentrates on providing &quot;positive space&quot; in which the small pieces can thrive, and prevents the big pieces from encroaching on this space. Is this &quot;top-down&quot; or &quot;bottom-up&quot;?</p>