though I disagree with Neil that "traditional (What is this?) SOA is a design blueprint based around a single computing environment", I also think that the basic concept of Cloud is a service orientation.
(BTW, SOA does not care about particular computing environment becuase SOA is _architecture_ while an environmnet is an element of Execution Context or SOA implementaition)
Anyway, Cloud is nothing more than outsourced IT. That is, it never will be "as an overall single computing environment" becuase we do not outsource everything. Moreover, if you follow the state of Cloud in the consumer world, it is found by many CIO/CTO/CEO that Cloud (especially Public Cloud) has an array of serious unresolved business issues. That is, Cloud is a quite immature SOA realisation so far.
I think that SOA RAF covers more than SOA and Cloud via its SO Ecosystem concept. [Please, note, I say SO not SOA ecosystem!]
I disagree with Peter in that "presumably anything, everything, beyond one’s own domain, is necessarily “cloud”". We are talking here apples and oranges. Cloud is outsourced IT, but the enterprise and its IT can still exist. Plus, SOA is over IT and Business (any business was and is service-oriented by nature). That is, even if IT has deprted into Cloud togehter with its services, an enterprise business remans in the company with its services (business capabilities and functions).
Inside business, there may be several ownership realms as well. Overall, SO Ecosystem comprises the internal (for an enterprise) ownership realms and external ones. The latter includes oursourced business functions like HR, Payroll, etc. as well as technology functions like Clouds (IaaS, SaaS, PaaS, etc.).
As a result, a SO Ecosystem is this "everything" entity while Cloud is only one element of it, particulary, technology-centric element. A number of non-technology elements of SO Ecosystem is huge and they are known as business services (see my book about Business Archtiecture based on combination of SO and Value Network).
It is another matter that SC38 and analogous organisations focus on technology only. I hope that they will not make the same mistake as TOGAF made by seeing business through the prism of IT (when the real world is exactly reversed). I am saying that Cloud as a form of SOA implementation and part of SO Ecosystem can be researched and standardised itself. Nevertheless, we should not say that a SO Ecosystem is nothing more than Cloud.
Regards,
- Michael Poulin
Hello folks
My 2c would be to highlight the growing role of 'the Cloud' as an overall single computing environment, a 'Global SOA' so to speak, as defined by a single addressing system most notably OASIS standards like XDI, with equally global shared services like Identity authentication achieved via common standards like SAML, OAuth et al.
The traditional SOA is a design blueprint based around a single computing environment but one defined at the enterprise level, a 'Corporate SOA'. Common shared services etc., but within a scope defined by their own internal corporate addressing mechanisms, directory systems etc.
So this shift retains the same architectural approach but simply abstracts it to work at the scope of this larger environment, the Cloud, where it works the same way using single shared services and so on, but where these shared services are achieved via a single global addressing system, not just within one corporate LAN domain.
A few years back I coined the idea of D-SOA: Distributed SOA, to reflect this same scope change, where services are invoking other services in remote domains, as enabled by this XDI addressing.
Kind regards, Neil.