Not long after the new millennium, discontent over interoperability, reusability, and other
issues drove the software community to come up with the service-oriented architecture (SOA)
paradigm. Even readers who are not familiar with SOA will probably agree that it is rooted in traditional
software development best practices and standards. To fulfill the promise of SOA, superb
governance mechanisms are necessary to break up organizational silos and maximize software
asset reusability. The SOA vision also addresses the challenges of tightly coupled software and
advocates an architecture that relies on the loose coupling of assets. On the financial front, it
tackles budgeting and return-on-investment issues. Another feature that benefits both the technological
and business communities is a reduction of time to market and business agility. Indeed,
the list of advantages continues to grow.
But does the promise of SOA address software diversity issues? Does it offer solutions
to the integration and collaboration hurdles created by the accumulation of generations of heterogeneous
computing landscapes? Will the SOA vision constitute yet another stratum of ideas
and technologies that will be buried beneath future innovations? Will SOA be remembered as a
hollow buzzword that failed to solve one of the most frustrating technological issues of our time?
Or will it serve as an inspiration for generations to come?
It is possible that SOA may fail to deliver on its promise, but if it does, we, business
and IT personnel, must shoulder some of the blame.
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