Martin Fowler on Service Oriented Ambiguity
I have blogged frequently on the mess the IT Industry has got itself into regarding the SOA TLA, and how it has totally missed a great opportunity to articulate a set of principles that will help us create future systems in a far more flexible, powerful, dynamic and composable manner than ever before.
It seems, however, that over the last few months, I've been getting the sense that I am no longer talking in a vacuum. Back in July, Martin Fowler blogged on this subject and David Ing chimed in too.
Increasingly, the customers I speak to are starting to understand that this "SOA silver-bullet" is not all that it's been hyped to be ... and that they need to start thinking about architecture separately from (and preferably BEFORE) they think about implementation.
Service Orientation describes the notions I've expressed many times in this blog and the core concepts that underly how we design and build tomorrow's systems, are sound and independent from any particular technologies and so are broadly applicable. Service Orientation does not prescribe a particular architectural style - that is a whole other conversation - but does describe many of the core concepts that stand as a foundation under whatever architectural principles one chooses to adopt when constructing systems.
I am so glad that finally, I am starting to see glimpses of sunlight through the thick SOA fog and that clear, rational thinking is actually starting to return to this sphere.
