Sometimes my favorite thing about the cloud is that it is garnishing all of the media hype these days, in place of SOA. Finally, I can stop trying to meet overblown expectations about when SOA will deliver benefits, and get down to the business of implementing valuable SOA solutions. Don’t worry, the cloud will get to this point too, but it has a few years of growing pains to go through. This year, it will pass through the inevitable “Trough of Disillusionment” part of its lifecycle. Now don’t get me wrong. There’s plenty to like about the cloud, and over time it will become a standard part of enterprise platforms, but for now it has the unenviable position of too much hype that is impossible to live up to.

However, as architects, we shouldn’t get complacent about the eventual (and Read more …

I was recently involved in a debate with my colleagues on the Cutter Business Technology Council about whether SOA has reached a tipping point. I do not believe that such a point has been reached. SOA isn’t a product, technology, or service. It is just a body of useful techniques for designing shareable, reusable, interoperable Web services. Perhaps the acronym should really be “GSA” or “good software architecture,” as the “debate” is really about the challenge and promise of good software architecture. The term “SOA” has become very confusing and possesses all the clarity of Web 2.0 (another term that drives me to distraction). Successful SOA is really about rearchitecting the application landscape and, as such, represents a massive shift in how most organizations work and think. It is much more than building service interfaces to existing applications; SOA Read more …

With the new year upon us, we asked Cutter’s Senior Consultants and Fellows for their business technology predictions. Their perspectives — as always — are quite thoughtful, thought-provoking, and varied. Projections cover the changing role of the CIO, what will happen in enterprise architecture, the increasing adoption of agile, the explosion of cloud computing, the impact of green initiatives, and more.

We’re posting all the predictions on the Cutter website as they come in. Here are some excerpts:

Israel Gat: I expect 2010 to be the first year of a prolonged golden age. San Murugesan: In 2010 and beyond, we will see growing interest and major developments in cloud computing, green IT, and mobile systems and applications. Steve Andriole: By 2015, operational technology requirements have merged with business requirements and vice versa. Vince Kellen: Social network Read more …

A recent blog post by Anne Thomas Manes on the alleged “Death of SOA” has been causing quite a stir. (In fact, my colleague at Cutter, Doug Barry, wrote (The Acronym) SOA is (Perhaps) Dead (at Some Companies) in reaction.) The contention is that the bad economic situation has finally finished the “SOAsaurus” off and that we must now concentrate on services, along with mashups, cloud computing, and software as a service (SaaS) — and not service-oriented architecture (SOA).

Knowing full well that SOA is alive — if not always exactly flourishing — in many organizations, my first reaction was that here were some sexy sound bytes designed merely as a marketing ploy.

At the same time, I had to admit the piece did strike a chord somewhere. In particular, I was reminded of a piece written nearly Read more …

On Monday, Anne Thomas Manes published SOA is Dead; Long Live Services on her blog at the Burton Group. My last check using Google showed that at least 50 bloggers have referenced her posting. Some have delighted in Anne’s statement that “It’s time to accept reality. SOA fatigue has turned into SOA disillusionment.” This point-of-view is further supported by a presentation Anne gave earlier this year that reported a Burton Group study that showed 50% of SOA projects were a complete failure and another 30 percent were considered not wholly successful in the 20 companies studied. This is pretty dismal stuff.

Paul Krill from Computerworld reported on Anne’s posting in SOA gets an obituary. You need to read to nearly the end of his article to see — as Alex Niehaus correctly points out in his Read more …