News
SOA Blog Watch 4/16: 'I've Got Middleware Hanging Out of My Middleware...'
- By Becky Nagel
- April 16, 2008
In this installment, the skeptics weigh in
yet again, this time on cloud computing and enterprise architecture in general; then it's on to solutions to current SOA woes, as well as other insights (including my favorite quote so far this year):
- We start this week with ZDNet's Joe McKendrick questioning the value of cloud computing: "...surveys I have worked with consistently have found that larger companies are not inclined at this point to tap into cloud solutions for mission-critical applications, since the systems they have built up over the years still offer competitive advantage."
- Meanwhile, David Linthicum, SOA analyst and newly appointed CEO of StrikeIron, wonders whether IT firms should continue to invest in any kind of enterprise architecture (although, he points out, IT firms aren't spending much -- and that may be the problem): "Indeed, for most of the Global 2000 there is a lone architect, with a couple of staffers, that has no budgetary nor referential authority, thus no results," he wrote in part. "[I]f this is the case, and the value is not there, why continue to invest?"
- If you're going to implement a project anyway, you might want to check out this post from SearchSOA.com capturing advice and other thoughts from attendees at the Impact 2008 conference IBM hosted last week, including this aforementioned gem: "I've got middleware hanging out of my middleware...I don't need more middleware."
- Dana Gardner from analyst firm Interarbor Solutions has an interesting post encouraging everyone to completely rethink data when it comes to SOA/Cloud computing: "It's now clear that the current mentality of data and its place is holding us back in unacceptably unproductive ways...the ways we treat data today is unnatural. And pretending otherwise is unsustainable," he wrote in part. "The cloud that can manage data in a way that allows both user-level and process-level access, with granular permissioning -- and allows CXOs to feel good about it all -- gets the gold ring. The cloud business is a 50-year business."
- IONA's Eric Newcomer wonders whether patterns could be the solution to software assembly: "What if we were to use integration techniques, such as patterns...to join programs together written using other DSLs [domain-specific languages]? Would we have the abstractions right? I.e., in the language instead of in pictures or interfaces?"
Other recent posts you might want to check out:
- The Burton Group's Anne Thomas Manes follows up on her post that we highlighted in our last installment searching for a few successful SOA stories (and finding them hard to come by). (It's a response to this post by Tom Biske).
- Sun's Alex Maclinovsky's post series on defining SOA governance (don't miss the link to the comment in the second installment -- well worth reading!)
That's it for this time. If you run across a thread you think should be included in future editions, drop me a note at bnagel(at)1105media.com.