SOA must enable architecture

The Institute for Enterprise Architecture says organisations looking at SOA need to see how it can enable strong architecture, rather than just another new technology to move data.

Guest writer Jan Popkin says they should also avoid arbitrarily selecting services that could expose internal data unnecessarily and instead evaluate services in the context of a technology issue and a security issue.

Clive Finkelstein, in his essay for b-eye: "Enterprise architecture for the twenty-first century", states that business must change to compete with other organisations in relevant markets.

He highlights three principles for change:
* Design systems for tomorrow based not on operational processes still used today. Design systems using new activities and processes based on the strategic plans that define what tomorrow will be.
* Systems must be tailored for the environment of the Internet - which represents our present and our future - so that enterprises can respond in seconds or minutes, not in days or weeks.
* Systems must be designed and built so they can accommodate rapid change if they are to be able to support the rapid pace of change that enterprises are experiencing today and tomorrow. Systems need to be composed of "logic LEGO building blocks" that can be assembled by point-and-click methods as process models or workflow models to generate executable code automatically. This will enable process changes to be made easily to accommodate changes in the business.

A posting by Dave Linthicum on InfoWorld's forum on the Enterprise Architecture Conference in San Diego, at which he was a speaker, points to a "huge divide between the 'traditional EA guys' and the 'services-oriented architecture (SOA) guys'.

"I'm not sure the attendees understand the synergies between the two disciplines [enterprise architecture and SOA]. In fact, I think they are one in the same; SOA at its essence is 'good enterprise architecture'," he writes.

"Second," he says, "while I've been living in the world of traditional enterprise architecture for some time, the notion of EA seems to have morphed into abstract management concepts, and not as much about understanding, problem solving, and technology. The bottom line is that SOA needs EA, and EA needs SOA, and the conversations between the two camps don't seem to be occurring."

Thanks to Institute for Enterprise Architecture, b-eye, and InfoWorld for the heads-up.