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Archives for July 2008

Conversation on "SOA as Business-Oriented Architecture"

July 29, 2008 By brenda michelson

This morning, the SOA Consortium (my client) released a podcast of David Butler’s SOA Transformation talk from our Ottawa meeting. I posted about it on SOA Consortium Insights and Business-Driven Architect.

Shortly after, Mark Griffin of Greylines posed some excellent points / questions in the comments of BDA:

“I may be being a bit to cynical about this, been a long week already. But having a technology vendor say its not about the technology is about the same as when I hear Exxon say it’s looking for alternatives to oil. I question the motive. 🙂

Still this point comes up a lot in the discussion about SOA. I think it deserves a bit more attention as a whole beyond the SOA is about the business type of discussions. My opinion has been all business software development is about the business. Why is this perceived to be different?

I see the differences in design from a software point of view. It is quite different than what a lot of shops are use to. But IT-Business alignment has been a topic of conversation and a goal of IT for a while now. How does a service orientation change that on-going conversation with the business?”

While I did respond (at length) in the comment section, I wanted to call out the conversation here, and invite others to jump in. My reply:

“Mark, Excellent questions / points. Not cynical at all.

On the “SOA is not about the technology”, please note that was me dragging out my soapbox as a leap from David’s “business-oriented architecture” comment. For your first question, I think Exxon is looking for oil alternatives so they have something to sell in the future. Following that scarce commodity line of thinking, you could say software vendors want someone to sell to in the future.

I think the larger, multi-purpose (“strategic”) vendors understand that the “sell and forget” business model doesn’t make for sustainable customer relationships. For these vendors, their best interest (motivation) is to ensure customers actually attain value from software investments. This means admitting to and assisting with the hard parts of technology adoption – organizational change, process and people. Note I did include “assisting with” because these same multi-purpose vendors also have services organizations. (More motivation)

As for the business focus, I couldn’t agree with your statement more “My opinion has been all business software development is about the business.” Unfortunately, when “SOA the marketing label” burst onto the scene, the conversation was all about products, protocols, acronyms and religious fervor. That hype cycle told business folks they needn’t care about SOA, it was an IT thing.

Of course, those of us that were employing “SOA the approach” knew better. That SOA is a viable strategy for business-IT alignment, because [soapbox warning] defining, employing and composing business services, in business interactions, business processes & event processing, allows IT to deliver solutions that actually match the intent and operations of the business. However, IT can’t do that alone. IT & the business need to collaborate on defining services that align with business capability. But there is that troublesome “SOA is an IT thing” obstacle.

So, long comment longer, we need to reclaim / re-orient the mainstream SOA conversation away from bits and bytes to delivering business capability. And then, actually deliver the promised and expected capability.”

Oh, and in full “conversation disclosure”, last week as I was reviewing the recording, I tweeted excerpts including “SOA is a business-oriented architecture”, which Dion Hinchcliffe augmented as follows:

business_oriented_architecture_tweets

[Disclosure: HP is not a client of my company, Elemental Links, but is a founding sponsor of the SOA Consortium, which is an Elemental Links’ client.]

Filed Under: business-technology, services architecture, soa

links for 2008-07-29

July 29, 2008 By brenda michelson

  • Service Oriented Abstraction: Intersection between Enterprise Architcture, ITIL and the SOA Movement
    check out Jeff’s view on relationship between ITIL & EA & SOA…”[EA] bricks describe the information needed for a configuration item (CI) inside of the CMDB. That a CI has to have a type associated with it and that type should be a brick inside of EA.”
    (tags: itil soa ea cmdb)
  • IBM to Buy Ilog for $340 Million
    i’m wishing IBM would fully connect the dots between SOA, BPM, Rules, Event Processing & Information Strategies… you know, like their customers do
    (tags: ibm soa bpm ilog)
  • Create and Share Your Own Cartoons with GoAnimate
    I need to try this… “GoAnimate is a new site where you can create your own animations.” that’s the former art student in me, not new viral marketer…but then again… Greg the Architect is entertaining…
    (tags: animation marketing)
  • Your Best Hire: It May Surprise You
    management teams of a shared ilk scare me, shows lack of guts at the top. this article points out why you need to “Hire into your weakness.”
    (tags: leadership)
  • What’s Wrong With SOA – CIO.com – Business Technology Leadership
    …posts that regress conversation! Again, SOA is NOT box of middleware & bag of protocols. SOA is an approach that allows IT to (finally, correctly) instantiate the intent of the business, and easily adapt to business change
    (tags: soa)
  • The IBM Acquisition Machine: A Sellers Perspective – Bits – Technology – New York Times Blog
    “they say, ‘I can buy you or I can buy one of your competitors,’ ” Mr. Haren said. “They come in with a carrot and a stick, which is the best way to do a deal,” Mr. Haren continued. “And you want a big carrot and a small stick, if you are th
    (tags: ibm ilog)

Filed Under: links

The question is not "to ESB or not to ESB", but how to adapt

July 24, 2008 By brenda michelson

When a friend forwarded me Joe’s excellent ESB vitriol post analyzing the current round of “ESB-hate” — sparked by a Dave Linthicum post — my first thought was to respond on Dave’s ESB technology point.  Not from a product point-of-view.  Rather, a technology architecture point-of-view.  Then, the question is not “to ESB, or not to ESB”, but what infrastructure services does your organization require to be successful with SOA. Then, and only then, determine the most appropriate products to provide those services.  And don’t forget to look at what you already have in-house.   Boringly, I’ve been singing this tune since I wrote my “Networked Integration Environment” and related SOA and ESB series for PSG in 2005.

But then, I saw a link for Neil Ward-Dutton’s post flow by on Twitter (yes, I tweet), and knew what I should really do was amplify Neil’s words on the architectural purity aspect:

“As any experienced IT staffer who’s been on the sharp end of a big business merger or acquisition, or even a radical change of leadership, will tell you, businesses don’t act like machines that EAs can simply steer so that they tend towards technology optimisation. In fact, it’s the opposite: business change forces (new competitors, new product launches, new market launches, new regulations, mergers and acquisitions, and so on) will always drive entropy, tending to push IT estates towards chaos. The best value an EA team can really provide in this environment is to help the IT organisation to absorb these changes with as little stress as possible, and drive consistent, planned responses.”

In the words of American poet Charles Olson, “What does not change is the will to change”. So, what are doing to inject adaptation into your architecture?

Filed Under: enterprise architecture, services architecture, soa

Call for Practitioners: expertise in SOA & Security or SOA & ITIL

July 24, 2008 By brenda michelson

SOA & Security

As James pointed out in his blog, we are trying to bring together a group of practitioners with expertise on SOA & Security for a roundtable conversation.  As we first began discussing on LinkedIn, we want to raise awareness on real-world security concerns with SOA.  The results of the roundtable discussion will be made public by the OWASP, SOA Consortium and Elemental Links.  Why practitioners?  We want to explore actual requirements and issues prior to hearing from vendors and consultants on answers. 

 

SOA & ITIL

Recently, during a SOA Consortium CoP call, Judith Hurwitz got us started on an interesting discussion on SOA and Operations Management.  The conversation was far ranging, including run-time governance of services, shared infrastructure management / monitoring, capacity planning, understanding access paths and the like.  Not surprising, the topic of SOA & ITIL came up.  How does ITIL v3 support SOA, who is using ITIL for SOA, what are the challenges, benefits, and more.   

The potential of SOA & ITIL v3 is something the SOA Consortium CoP wants to explore further.  The first step is to invite experienced practitioners to speak with us at our September member meeting in Orlando.

To volunteer, or nominate, a practitioner for either activity, please leave comment and/or send an email bmichelson at elementallinks dot com.

 

[Disclosure: The SOA Consortium is a client of my company, Elemental Links.]

Filed Under: services architecture, soa

links for 2008-07-21

July 21, 2008 By brenda michelson

  • Slide Show: The 2008 International Design Excellence Awards Winners
    Product (mostly) design wins ranging from construction to transportation, including tech, home living, medical and museums. Ton of slides. Spurs a little post-show shopping.
    (tags: design)

Filed Under: links

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Brenda M. Michelson

Brenda Michelson

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