WS-I declares ‘mission accomplished’

The need for the WS-I is not as great as it was.

Understanding the Value of Reference Architectures

There’s nothing more that architects love to do than argue about definitions. If you ever find yourself with idle time in a room of architects, try asking for a definition of “Service” or “architecture” and see what sort of creative melee you can start. That being said, definitions are indeed …

SOA Reference Model approved by OASIS

However, developers seeking specifics on how to implement SOA will have to look elsewhere, said Jason Bloomberg, senior analyst at ZapThink LLC.

“The OASIS SOA Reference Model is an abstract model that is intended to help organize distributed capabilities across different sets of users,” the analyst said. “In essence, the SOA-RM is intended to help enterprise architects coordinate separate SOA efforts across an organization. The challenge that SOA-RM has is that it’s quite abstract. So it can provide an overall framework for planning an enterprise SOA initiative, but it won’t provide much in the way of real-world SOA implementation advice.”

Read more at: SearchWebServices

Sun Seeks .NET Détente Via OASIS

Jason Bloomberg, senior analyst at ZapThink, said in an interview that this initiative from Sun is more than simply a signal of its intentions; it shows a lot of gumption because making Java and .NET interoperable is not going to be easy.

“This is Sun in survival mode, and Microsoft is trying to take over the world, as usual,” said Bloomberg. “Think of the chutzpah required for Sun engineers to go up to Redmond and work on this.”

Bloomberg intimated that Sun’s motives for this move are to keep its programming languages and software relevant and useful in the increasingly heterogeneous SOA space. For Microsoft, however, Bloomberg said that this move will allow it to present .NET as a one-stop solution for integration.

Read more at: SD Times

Service-Oriented Architecture: Ask the Expert (CIO Magazine)

Rather than repeat it all here, I would like to advise readers that Jason Bloomberg and Ron Schmelzer at Zapthink have given this subject a lot of thought and encourage you to read the free materials on their website. Other analysts have similar views of the subject.

Some of Zapthink’s suggestions are ensuring SOA is accepted and understood within your organization, understanding the technology roadmaps that lie ahead, realizing that your corporate IT assets will change as they mature, planning and scoping SOA projects ahead of time and a raft of other good ideas. The following article is a good starting point:
http://zapthink.com/report.html?id=ZAPFLASH-2005711

Read more at: CIO Magazine

How Many Architectures Do You Need?

Not long after we debunked the distinction between Event-Driven Architecture (EDA) and Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) did we become aware of yet another architectural TLA (three-letter acronym): Process-Oriented Architecture (POA). Proponents of POA describe an architecture that leverages processes as the fundamental element of the architecture. POA leverages SOA, to …

Web services chugging along

An analyst put the onus on improving the user understanding of Web services.

“The main advantages of Web services are in easing the loose coupling between service providers and consumers within SOA implementations,” said Jason Bloomberg, senior analyst at ZapThink, in an e-mail response to questions. “Among the problems that Web services still face, I’d put at the top of my list a still-prevalent lack of understanding of what they’re for and how to use them. Think [of] a 6-year-old with a circular saw.”

Read more at: InfoWorld

Messaging specs drive toward convergence

It’s impossible for IT end-user companies to take a specification seriously if the vendors can’t agree on a single one,” said Jason Bloomberg, senior analyst at ZapThink LLC, of Waltham, Mass. “Therefore, reaching consensus among vendors on a spec as important as the one for reliable messaging is an important step in the market validation of the standards process for this spec.”

Read more at: SearchWebServices

Competing Web Services Specs Merge

ZapThink analyst Ronald Schmelzer said reusable services that utilize the fairly inefficient XML standard are becoming a challenge for companies to manage in the runtime, making the reliability specifications the key to drive Web services in the future.

The analyst said that now that both reliability groups are collaborating on a single specification, the potential competition problems have gone away.

“In any case, we’ll have to see what the final specification results from the joint activities of all the parties involved,” Schmelzer said. “And, for sure, it seems that this OASIS specification will be the de-facto one for the industry once it’s created — there are no longer any real competitors in the market.”

Read more at: InternetNews

Unity may come to Web services messaging specifications

An analyst commented on the dueling WS-RM and WS-Reliability specifications. “It was clear that these two standards were going to go head-to-head in a pitched battle to see which would win out,” said Ronald Schmelzer, senior analyst at ZapThink. “Well, it seems that this problem has now been defused.”

“The various groups have realized that it’s in no one’s best interest to have competing reliability specifications on the market, and so by collaborating on a single specification, the potential competition problems should be ameliorated,” Schmelzer said.

Read more at: InfoWorld