Good intentions - bad SOA

MSDN Blog Postings » Good intentions - bad SOA

MSDN Blog Postings » Good intentions - bad SOA — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 22:58:32 GMT

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re: Good intentions - bad SOA

jdn — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 03:52:14 GMT

"Miss on ANY of these points and your SOA will not deliver the value of reuse."

Doesn't this amount to saying that SOA can never deliver the value of reuse?

re: Good intentions - bad SOA

NickMalik — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 06:37:45 GMT

No... it is possible.

On the other hand, I don't talk about the value of reuse as much as the value of agility.

You can get a lot of agility with a minimum of reuse.

re: Good intentions - bad SOA

Antony Kmber — Sat, 15 Sep 2007 07:22:39 GMT

Nick

I enjoy the postings from you and JoeMcK.

Often when I read marketing literature or documents on IT tools I get the impression that these documents are written for global multinational organisations with huge IT budgets and hordes of technical people. The array of tools a good SOA shop needs and the array of technologies an IT organisation is expected to master is mind-boggling. Now you are adding another five teams to the SOA staffing.

Is there any hope for the "small" IT groups? Can we deliver a light version of SOA or should we just give up?

re: Good intentions - bad SOA

NickMalik — Sat, 15 Sep 2007 21:09:36 GMT

Hi Antony,

In a smaller company, this is a LOT easier to do. I talk about teams because in large places, you cannot effect change with only one person or a small team, but in a small place, you really can do it.

What you need for a smaller IT shop:

Executive sponsorship for the cost, complexity, readiness, and infrastructure issues that ANY major IT change entails.

A single leader who understands SOA and can share the goodness with every developer. Call him or her the chief architect or enterprise architect. This person decides what technology to use and shares the vision of SOA as enabler.

An information architect to create and own your common data model.

A business architect to create and own your business events ontology and business objects / entities.

A governance process where the chief architect, the IA and the BA all review the project plans of each project to make sure they are in line with SOA.

A process for improving the common models through the input and collective knowledge of the project teams.

That's it. You DO need Enterprise Architecture to make SOA work. But you NEED SOA to make IT efficient, effective, and agile. It is not cheap, but neither is your network, an you pay for that because it is necessary infrastructure. So is Enterprise Architecture.

This cannot be done with getting CEO on board. Not in a small-to-medium company. Hiding from the CEO is planning for failure. Do this with his or her blessing and support.

In really small companies, the CTO is the Enterprise Architect.

New and Notable 192

Sam Gentile — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 17:20:53 GMT

Thank God for coffee.... Astoria/Orcas/Data Services The Astoria September 2007 CTP is now available