Publicly Speaking

I’m never thrilled when I come across an article that would have been perfect for comment or inclusion from IONA and we’re not in it. I feel a little better when none of the folks with whom we compete are mentioned and the main commentary comes from the analyst community and an end user from an anonymous, Midwestern insurance company. Plus, this whole blogging thing gives me an opportunity to demonstrate to anybody who stumbles in here how IONA fits into the mix.

I just finished reading Three Ways to Avoid SOA Snafus published a couple of days ago at Datamation (I’m not afraid to date myself a bit and admit that I remember the days when Datamation was a slick, glossy monthly). The article is a pretty good primer on what companies need to think about as they evaluate how SOA may benefit the organization. In the first couple of paragraphs I felt like I was reading the words of our own CTO, Eric Newcomer when Forrester analyst Randy Heffner is quoted as saying:

“The biggest mistake people make is thinking that SOA is a technology. It’s not. It’s an architecture. And just because you know technology does not mean you know how to design an architecture.”

I can’t count the number of interviews and briefings I’ve facilitated where Eric begins the conversation just this way, and stresses that one of the biggest myths people fall for is believing that the can buy an “SOA in a box” add water and presto…instant SOA. It just doesn’t work that way and it’s too bad that so many vendors are still pushing that tired old claim in an effort to push their monolithic, centralized stacks.

There’s some other good advice in the article, including a reminder about governance and security – two areas we here at IONA also believe shouldn’t be SOA afterthoughts and are key pieces of our Artix advanced SOA infrastructure suite.

I really enjoy reading Joe McKendrick’s blog over at ZDNet. In fact, most of the bloggers over at ZDNet offer a lot of good insight on a lot of different topics. The site is well worth a regular visit or an RSS subscription.

It’s Joe’s entry from June 22, “Time to drive a wedge between SOA and Web services?” that really caught my eye. Interestingly, the general idea of what he’s saying, along with several of the folks he quotes, is what IONA has been saying since we started talking about SOA. Granted, the headline is a little sensational – not too over the top – but a little bit, and I guess it worked because it got me to read the entry. The philosophy that SOA and Web services need not be intrinsically joined at the hip is one that we fully support. But do we really need to drive a wedge between the two?

I’m amused when people casually throw around terms such as “always.” You hear that word often in relation to SOA deployment, especially from the vendor community and especially if a vendor’s product grew up out of a specific industry segment. How often have we heard that SOA is always about integration…or reuse…or interoperability? Or heard arguments about Web services always being the best way to implement your SOA…or in some schools of thought never? I find it hard to believe that so many people believe the world of SOA is so black and white.

The real power of SOA is found ultimately in the flexibility of this computing methodology. And when choosing the underlying technology, it can't be an all or nothing argument. An ideal SOA environment should be able to evolve easily as the technology landscape changes. Remember, SOA isn’t new. The acronym may be, but the approach is well established. IONA customers were deploying SOA 10 years ago on CORBA, and many of those systems are still up and running and delivering value. Today, they’re taking those existing systems and making them a part of new systems that incorporate the latest Web services standards, and who knows what they’ll be doing tomorrow. To that end, IONA just added a bunch of new capabilities in the latest version of Artix that allows developers to take advantage of scripting languages and build REST-based services. Our technology is evolving at the same time as the needs of our audience.

The beauty of SOA is that there’s no need to choose sides or employ wedges. SOA isn’t a specific technology – or rely on a specific technology – and you should be wary of anybody that says or implies otherwise.