Ravi Sharma wrote:
> SOA deals with all three at least, namely - Business - Information
> (applications and data) and Technical services to cater to the whole
> enterprise. The business services are catering to business components
> that can be grouped into business functions. Example of technical
> service is a web-service for message delivery or for notification or
> service for network related management, security services, etc. (01)
This is the hype version of SOA, whose purpose is to sell webservice
implementations (read: "new software technology") to management, and
allow a bunch of pundits to sell books and "newspapers". (02)
The services that we know how to implement with software, and the only
ones that are really implemented, are all relatively simple technical
services that are pure information technology. There are two major
exceptions to this:
- financial services -- because they are *entirely* information
technology (there hasn't been any substance there since the G7/8 went
off specie-backed currency, and the requirement for specie reserve
affects only financial policy, not financial transactions)
- media (books, newspapers, music, video) -- because they are now also
entirely information technology (even though they are still evolving the
business practices to deal with the fact that there is no longer a need
for any physical media to change hands) (03)
Business management in general isn't going to invest much in yet another
software networking technology -- we have had our 3 strikes. So the SOA
folk have to say "business", even though what they can envisage never
gets out of the .com think of 10 years ago. (04)
Ken Laskey got it right:
> I find it useful to differentiate between a business service and a SOA
> service. Business services are described in the more traditional
> sense of providing a business function, yes with predictable business
> outcomes, i.e. real world effects.
------------------
That is, there is some material or labor involved in changing the state
of the physical world. The software itself does not do that. It could
conceivably control devices that do such things, but the real-time
control community has had functional distributed systems technologies
for at least 15 years, and doesn't need the high-overhead re-invention
that is SOA technology. And unsurprisingly, the same is largely true of
the finance industry and, more recently, of some highly visible elements
of the media business. (05)
> A SOA service is an IT artifact that *may* be an effective way to
> realize that business function. (06)
Specifically, when that function can be fulfilled solely by the
communication of information. (07)
> Conversely, SOA will be inappropriate
> and have no role in certain business functions. (08)
Even though these functions can be implemented as "business services",
like building maintenance. (09)
Thanks, Ken. (010)
-Ed (011)
P.S. I should say that this takes nothing away from the TOG and OASIS
work in producing clear models of the complex distributed systems
concepts that are now called SOA. Such models will be of great value in
educating the technologists of the next decade. And with luck, they
will stop the recurring reinvention of this wheel and the re-learning
that that makes necessary. I just think responsible technologists
should separate the wheat from the marketing chaff when dealing with a
technical audience. (012)
--
Edward J. Barkmeyer Email: edbark@xxxxxxxx
National Institute of Standards & Technology
Manufacturing Systems Integration Division
100 Bureau Drive, Stop 8263 Tel: +1 301-975-3528
Gaithersburg, MD 20899-8263 FAX: +1 301-975-4694 (013)
"The opinions expressed above do not reflect consensus of NIST,
and have not been reviewed by any Government authority." (014)
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