The Rebirth of SOA on the Wings of SaaS and Cloud Computing
An analysis of the health of SOA as a mainstream Software Engineering Paradigm
Service Oriented Architecture was hailed as the next major leap ahead in the ICT industry and was predicted by many to be as big a leap forward as that achieved with Object-Oriented software design patterns. For example, in 2006, Joseph Bih introduced SOA in a research article as an innovative new way to conduct e-business. While much published and promoted in the marketplace, SOA adoption has been the subject of significant controversy, not least of which is the publication of a landmark article by now Gartner Fellow Anne Thomas Manes in January 2009 in which SOA was declared "dead". This publication examines the health of SOA as a relevant paradigm in the ICT industry three years after some market opinion leaders declared SOA dead.
Understanding the meaning of SOA
SOA is a natural evolution of client-server programming. The major difference between traditional client-server programming and SOA is that the server-side processing in a SOA environment is governed by business processes. This has the benefit (and promise) of bringing service delivery for any business closer to business analysts and therefore a common understanding across a broader spectrum of business personnel about the technology used to support business services. If your organisation adopts SOA internally with all services under your control, then SOA is simply defined as client-server where server side business logic is determined by configurable business processes. At its true core SOA means less coding and more business process configuration (in other words Business Process Management) and governance that is entrenched in the way systems are designed.
OASIS Definition of SOA
According to the SOA-RM specification, SOA is a paradigm for organizing and utilizing distributed capabilities that may be under the control of different ownership domains. It provides a uniform means to offer, discover, interact with and use capabilities to produce desired effects consistent with measurable preconditions and expectations. The SOA-RM specification bases its definition of SOA around the concept of "needs and capabilities", where SOA provides a mechanism for matching needs of service consumers with capabilities provided by service providers.
BY PHILIP STANDER
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