ZapThink LLC senior analyst Ron Schmelzer sees Microsoft’s approach to SOA as problematic.

“We think that Microsoft is communicating the wrong message around SOA,” he says. “It’s focused on Web services integration. They say, ‘If you just build a bunch of Web services and run them on our platform you’ll have SOA.’ But we think they should show how Microsoft is applying SOA beyond just integrating Web services to provide some of the key benefits of SOA, like process-driven, recomposable services, and governed, managed, secure event services.”

ZapThink has been warning against taking an “ESB-first approach” to SOA, in which the enterprise service bus (ESB) is implemented first, and SOA is implemented almost as a platform. In a recent report, ZapThink analyst Jason Bloomberg writes that ESB as integration middleware can lead to escalating costs as needs evolve, possibly canceling out the ROI that might be gained in the first place. “Only by taking an architecture-first approach to SOA will organizations be able to achieve this benefit,” claims Bloomberg.

The two great promises of SOA — costs savings and greater agility — are essential elements of surviving an economic downturn, Bloomberg observes, but simply having a SOA initiative doesn’t guarantee success. “You have to get it right,” he warns. “When we see enterprises who’ve taken a SOA platform approach consider purchasing middleware for their middleware to scale their SOA initiatives, oblivious to the fact that following that path will prevent them from achieving the goals of SOA, all we can say is that we’ll be placing our bets on … the ones who are taking an architecture-first approach to SOA.”

Read more at: RedmondDeveloper News