RE: [soa-rm] Disappointing podcast on SOA RMs

["Metz, Rebekah" <metz_rebekah@bah.com>]

Jeff - 

While I've not listened to the podcast, I find your comments very
apropos to my recent post on the CBDi Journal article on a common SOA
language.  The common thread between these two is the blended notion of
"reference model" with "reference architecture."  In both, it was likely
necessary to extend the boundary of discussion to include reference
architectures and meta-models for a broad comparison.  However, building
a comparison of the relative strengths and weakness of reference models
against reference architecture does not consider when the differences
are intentional and appropriate.  

Rebekah

-----Original Message-----
From: Jeffrey A. Estefan [mailto:jeffrey.a.estefan@jpl.nasa.gov] 
Sent: Wednesday, February 07, 2007 5:26 PM
To: soa-rm@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: [soa-rm] Disappointing podcast on SOA RMs

SOA-RM TC Colleagues,

I have to say, this was a disappointing podcast from David Linthicum:
http://www.ebizq.net/blogs/linthicum/archives/2007/02/what_is_a_soa_r.ph
p

There was absolutely no mention of our work and the OASIS SOA-RM formal
standard.  He did mention the debate that centered around The Open
Group's effort to define a SOA reference architecture and referenced the
following
article:
http://weblog.infoworld.com/realworldsoa/archives/2007/02/open_group_deb
a.html

One troublesome item of note is that David blended the notions of
"reference model" with "reference architecture," which we all know are
not synonymous. 
And the podcast diverged into a discussion comparing and contrasting SOA
with EA (Enterprise Architecture), probably based on the fact that
debate on 
The Open Group SOA RA work was taken in the context of EA.
Unfortunately, 
too many people don't know that EA really is and that fact that EA is
not an architectural style or architectural paradigm like SOA is but
rather that EA is an essential element of IT governance and is used as
an strategic planning tool used to help make IT investment decisions.
And that it is comprised of a current ("as-is") state, a desired target
state ("to-be"), together with a transition plan to help define how to
migrate from the current state to the target state.  And that it should
be updated on annually.

Anyway, I responded to David's podcast but don't know if it was lost in
cyber-ether.  Perhaps I'll try a direct e-mail.  You can find out more
on David's website at:
http://linthicumgroup.com/

And if any of you know David personally, I'd encourage you to contact
him and help build some advocacy around open, industry-standard SOA RMs
and to help distinguish between RMs and RAs.

Regards...

 - Jeff E.