Technology not the hardest bit of SOA

A recent InfoWorld article says the going is slow on SOA, mainly because the business processes need to be redrafted to fit - and that takes time and causes contention.

"Ask anyone in charge of constructing a service-oriented architecture (SOA), and they'll tell you that the hardest part isn't the technology; it's redrawing the business processes that provide the basis for the architecture - and the often contentious reshuffling of roles and responsibilities that ensues."

But that's not all - the technology dependencies need to be taken care of as well. "Services and their messaging infrastructure must be provisioned and managed, alongside whatever platforms, applications, and systems are already in place," says the piece.

Cisco research shows that US federal agencies are wanting more centralised frameworks for security services and further embedding of security in the enterprise. The survey results show that enterprise architecture "may be viewed as a way to drive security as an enterprise capability".

"Agencies also are seeking help in developing their expertise, tools and transition planning, with the survey indicating a desire for more private sector assistance," said the company.

Respondents to the survey saw enterprise architecture challenges in collaboration, information sharing and consolidation of IT infrastructure. Top priorities over the next two years were security, disaster planning and recovery.

The Register notes that although Microsoft's Windows Computer Cluster Server doesn't put in much of a showing on the Top 500 list of supercomputers, the company intends to change this by releasing tools to make parallel computing easier.

"To help out developers, Microsoft has been releasing and will continue to put out tools for writing parallel applications that can be spread across numerous machines," said The Reg.

"The idea is to convince people to go after parallelising applications that are not thought of as classic high performance computing apps," said Microsoft marketing director Shawn Hansen.

Thanks to InfoWorld, Cisco and The Register.