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Guest View: Three Definitions of SOA


By Jan Popkin
August 1, 2007 — 
Service-oriented architecture has emerged as one of the most discussed topics in software development today. Attend an IT conference and SOA is often one of the featured topics. Magazine articles tout “how to” case studies of SOA implementations and in-depth analyses of the technology and its benefits. Newspapers cover every SOA from every angle.

SOA has become a rich, complex term that encompasses much more than a new technology. As with the advent of any new technology, the term SOA has been expanded to assume a variety of meanings. The most common usage refers to SOA as a technology that loosely couples applications into a service layer. Others talk about SOA as the next big thing on the technology horizon. SOA can also refer to a concept that embraces a service-based, flexible technology platform that increases agility.

What exactly is meant by the term SOA?

The usage of the term SOA can be tied to three definitions, and when different people are using different definitions, confusion can be the result:

1. SOA as a technology. This usage is the most common today and discusses the actual “how to” software behind developing and linking services to create an agile IT infrastructure. This meaning is reflected in the definition of the OASIS Reference Model for SOA 1.0: “a paradigm for organizing and utilizing distributed capabilities that may be under the control of different ownership domains.”

2. SOA as an architectural principle. This usage is directly tied to SOA’s adoption as a planning tool that designates what services will be designed and how they relate to one another over time. The SOA concept is viewed as part of the goal of using IT to address current and future organizational strategies via reconfiguration. This approach defines a new way for technology to enable architecture. OMG reflects this in its definition of SOA as “an architectural style for a community of providers and consumers of services to achieve mutual value.”

3. SOA as an enterprise strategy. The term SOA is also being used as a high-level concept that encompasses people, process and technology into an enterprise view. At this abstract level, SOA is a term not only describing the mechanism for IT to deliver against business requirements, but also for developing an IT infrastructure that is easily reconfigurable and flexible, enabling an organization to respond more rapidly to change. It encompasses the idea of developing “composite systems” that incorporate new functionality without limiting future options. It recognizes the real promise of SOA as a platform for rapid change.

Each part of an organization sees SOA from a different perspective, thus the different meanings. For example, a CEO is interested in SOA as a mechanism to help achieve corporate agility. A CIO, enterprise architect and business analyst are more interested in SOA as an architectural principle for guiding system reconfiguration and change over time. A software engineer is interested in service implementation and reconfiguration.

Organizations that recognize the benefits of SOA at these various levels should see greater success in leveraging its benefits. Both long- and short-term views are essential. A long-term view recognizes that the real benefit of SOA is in its application as an architectural principle for corporate guidance. By taking an enterprise view, organizations can more quickly and easily reconfigure their services to meet changing market conditions or operational demands. This delivers on the future promise of SOA as a platform for agility. Technology can be more easily reconfigured to address change.

Enterprise architecture is a way to realize the promise of SOA at the implementation, planning and enterprise levels. Enterprise architecture provides the visualization, analysis and sharing of this information from a central repository of data.

An enterprise architecture provides a central platform for people at all levels of an organization to see and understand their services strategy over time. Organizations can use the shared vocabulary provided by the enterprise architecture to communicate about services. Stakeholders can ensure services support the business goals and strategies of the organization. They can evaluate and prioritize service implementation according to these goals. This avoids the trap of deploying technology without directly relating it to the business.

In essence, an enterprise architecture provides the intellectual component of SOA because it puts order to the randomness of the discrete systems being layered to create a SOA environment. It helps organizations look beyond an IT-centric view of SOA and drive a SOA strategy from business requirements, processes, goals and strategies. An enterprise architecture map of people, processes and applications aids in smarter decision-making about system reconfigurability to support business goals. This, in turn, helps transform IT applications from execution mechanisms to key contributors to organizational agility. This ensures that organizations benefit from the long-term benefits offered by SOA.

Organizations that approach SOA as an architectural principle instead of another new technology to move data will benefit the most from SOA’s value proposition. Enterprise architecture is the platform for delivering the knowledge needed to perform new tasks in new ways. With an enterprise architecture, organizations can avoid the trap of formalizing old ways of doing things using new technology such as SOA.

Jan Popkin is a strategist for Telelogic, which sells enterprise architecture management and business process modeling tools.


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