SOFTWARE ARCHITECTURE & SOA
SOA is Dead! Long Live SOA!
Some have said SOA is dead, killed off by overambitious zealots, underperforming products,
and bloated service engagements. Perhaps the SOA of their dreams is dead, but the real SOA
is very much alive. It just happens to look a lot like past software...only a bit faster, cheaper,
and better.
—Ian Finley, vice president at AMR Research
ecent AMR Research data showed most sup-
ply chain companies are not implementing or
considering SOA technology in the next 12
and business renovation project at a time. R
SOA will be with us for a long time. It’s a compendium of
current best practices applied to the problem of a rapidly
months; yet a large proportion are planning on upgrading to changing business world. Unless the world stops changing
SOA-enabled versions of their core enterprise applications. or some radical new paradigm is invented, SOA will be the
SOA is dead as a product, but very much alive as an cornerstone of enterprise software for years to come. SOA
approach.
permeates everything from warehousing applications to
As with many transformative technologies, SOA was set up Facebook. If there was a better approach, companies would
to fail. It was sold as a panacea. Vendors promised plug-and- be investing in it already. Until a successor emerges, SOA
play integration, instantaneous agility, programmer-less appli- will continue to reign.
cations, and greener data centers. But we are now witnessing a
backlash against SOA snake oil.
The Outlook
SOA failed to transform the industry overnight because it is In 2010, expect SOA products to continue to fade as SOA
plumbing—albeit, better plumbing—for doing things we becomes a standard component of every packaged applica-already knew how to do. We solve the same business prob- tion, SaaS service and integration middleware suite. Smart
lems and many of the same technical issues as we did pre-SOA, companies will continue to use the SOA built into their appli-but we can do it faster, cheaper and better. Despite the back- cations, services and tools to gradually create themselves a
lash, SOA continues to infiltrate companies, one technology fix faster, cheaper and better reality.
