RE: FW: [soa-rm] SOA RM in the media - Infoworld

Good thoughts Len. I think the answer comes down to: how much experience is needed to start a standards effort for an SOA reference model?

One answer says that we have already been doing SOA for decades (CORBA/DCOM, N-tier architectures, etc.), so all of that experience is brought into this effort. And then one can add what's essentially the newest aspect: use of the Web. Another answer says yes, let's have more real-world experience in the "newest" form of SOA before we proceed.

Another viewpoint says that there is much confusion about what SOA is, and an effort such as this - if done properly - can help clarify things. If it's not done properly, then we're back to square one minus 1000.

This TC is taking a very "minimalist" approach (IMHO) by specifying only those aspects of SOA that are required for all service-oriented architectures, and being more abstract than concrete in definition of these aspects. For example, aspects such as orchestration and security have - so far - been treated as not required for all service-oriented architectures. Therefore, orchestration will not be a part of the reference model (the TC has felt that orchestration is really part of what is being called "process-oriented architectures", and not service-oriented architectures). Additionally, security is currently being represented under the overall umbrella of "policy".

We have had discussions about creating more concrete representations separately from the reference model, but based on it. Such representations could contain aspects such as orchestration.

The following publicly available e-mail contains the latest SOA-RM draft: http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/soa-rm/200505/msg00009.html

Joe

Booz Allen Hamilton

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