When Is An SOA Really An SOA?

["Chiusano Joseph" <chiusano_joseph@bah.com>]

This question has been on my mind for quite some time, and I would like now to put it in the context of our in-process RM.

 

In the past, I have pondered the following more specific question (please note that this is all scoped to Web Services-based SOA for ease of explanation):

 

If I have 2 Web Services that communicate, do I have an SOA? 

 

We can say "certainly not!". One can do point-to-point integration with Web Services just as easily (to a certain degree) as without, with redundant Web Services rather than shared Web Services (a violation of one of the foundational tenets of SOA, which is shared services).

 

Now let's say that we have 2 Web Services that each conform to the SOA Architectural Model in Figure 1 of our most recent draft. There is a data model, a policy, a contract, etc.

 

Add to that our definition of SOA on line 470, in which we (correctly) state that SOA is a form of Enterprise Architecture, which (at least in my mind) implies enterprise-level benefits.

 

Q: Given the last scenario above (2 Web Services that each conform to the SOA Architectural Model ) and our definition of SOA: Is this scenario large-scale enough that it *really* meets our definition? IOW, how large-scale does an "instance" that conforms to our RM have to be to yield benefits on an enterprise scale? Do we need to stipulate something regarding this for our RM?

 

Joe

 

Joseph Chiusano

Booz Allen Hamilton

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