RE: [soa-rm] Why do we need SOA? (proposal for Introduction text)

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

Title: Re: [soa-rm] Why do we need SOA? (proposal for Introduction text)

I thought this was supposed to be an open effort, where contributions from members were welcome and encouraged. I have never been involved in a TC that effectively shut down its communications for blocks of time as much as a week long, while a group of individuals worked in private on writing a specification while the others could only wait and see what they came up with. We are supposed to be encouraged to make contributions as TC members, at any time - this is what the spirit of OASIS is about, and has - from my experience - always been.

 

If we are ready for an initial draft, but not read to discuss why we need SOA, then we truly are not ready for an initial draft.

 

Joe

---

From: Ken Laskey [mailto:klaskey@mitre.org]
Sent: Sun 5/8/2005 2:11 PM
To: Smith, Martin
Cc: soa-rm@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: Re: [soa-rm] Why do we need SOA? (proposal for Introduction text)

Martin,

I think sometimes a discussion ends abruptly when someone captures 
enough of the essence and we're not ready to delve into the specifics.  
I agree wholeheartedly with answering the "why do we care?" question 
and I like many of your ideas and would quibble with others.  
Personally, I figured you'll make sure these ideas are added if they 
are missing from the first editors' draft.  Right now, I'm looking 
forward to seeing that first draft so I can start thinking about what 
we have right, wrong, or somewhere in between.  To that end, I'd better 
finish writing my sections :-)

Ken

On May 8, 2005, at 12:24 AM, Smith, Martin wrote:

> List - -
>
> I sent essentially this same message in the thread  "[soa-rm] When Is 
> An SOA Really An SOA?"  a while back, but got no response.  Thought 
> I'd try again to see if no-one noticed it or no-one liked it . . .
>
> I'm proposing we include something like the following in the 
> Introduction.  As several people have observed, we all tended to jump 
> right in to the details of "what is an SOA" without nailing down the 
> answer to the "why should I [the reader] care?" question.  As we 
> learned in the f2f discussion, many of us on the TC care because it's 
> our job to explain to others why we all seem to think we need this 
> 'SOA' thing (other than that it keeps being in the news!)  I'm 
> guessing that if we can understand why SOA has become a buzzword, 
> we'll  clarify the "essential definition" question.
>
> So, here's what I think is driving SOA:
>
> "The SOA concept has emerged in response to the need for an approach 
> to application architecture that is well adapted to the Internet 
> environment. The Internet has revolutionized personal communications 
> with e-mail, and "B-to-C" transactions with the World-Wide Web.  
> Following the exploitation path of other technologies, the Internet 
> may be expected to have a similar revolutionary effect on "B-to-B" 
> transactions - - automating system-to-system exchanges - - and this 
> domain may eventually be several times larger in scale that the 
> "B-to-C" space.
>
> The characteristics of the Internet environment to which the SOA 
> concept responds are:
>
>         1.  Multiple management domains.--Business or other entities 
> "on the 'Net" each have their own set of policies and procedures, and 
> they are legal peers so there is little or no "top down governance" in 
> the environment;
>
>         2.  Heterogeneous technologies, semantics and processes;
>         3.  A very large and dynamic "marketplace" of potential 
> service providers and consumers.--Unlike the environment within a 
> single organization, there may be many alternative providers of a 
> computing service, and available services may change on a 
> minute-by-minute basis;
>
>         4.  Lack of standard context.--Within a single organization, 
> there is normally a body of "well-known" information about what 
> resources are available, how they may be obtained, what standards or 
> conventions they follow, specific interface details, reliability of 
> the resource, payment requirements, if any, etc. In the environment of 
> a single computer, the unknowns are even fewer.  Because of the size 
> and diversity of the Internet, obtaining this information is a much 
> larger problem.
>
>         5.  Lack of infrastructure services.--The Internet provides 
> some basic services, but on a "best-efforts" basis. Thus issues like 
> quality-of service and security require must be addressed more 
> explicitly than in single-computer or local-network environments.
>
> Application architectures that call themselves "SOA" provide a 
> solution to these issues of the Internet environment. There is nothing 
> to prevent implementing an SOA within a local network, on a single 
> computing platform, or even in a non-technical environment like a 
> human household, but the need for SOA is driven by the opportunity for 
> exploiting the worldwide connectivity provided by the Internet."
>
> Martin
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: John Harby [mailto:jharby@gmail.com]
> Sent: Thursday, May 05, 2005 12:05 PM
> To: soa-rm@lists.oasis-open.org
> Subject: Re: [soa-rm] When Is An SOA Really An SOA?
>
> This seem to be an issue for defining "Reference Model". Does this
> reference model provide a litmus test for architectures to determine
> whether or not they follow SOA?
>
> On 5/5/05, Chiusano Joseph <chiusano_joseph@bah.com> wrote:
>> 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
>>
>> Visit us online@ http://www.boozallen.com
>>
>>
>
>
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Ken Laskey
MITRE Corporation, M/S H305     phone:  703-983-7934
7515 Colshire Drive                        fax:        703-983-1379
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