Is not it time SOA-needed professionals, enterprise architects, in order to participate in the implementation of projects? And is not it time for EA to them - even if they secretly oppose and fear of the unknown consequences of the SOA?
Seriously, get over it together and let the problem work itself on the drawing board now, before it a big problem.
I ask this because sometimes I think I'm missing something. It is definitely a "conflict" between SOA and enterprise architecture. Isay "conflict" with quotation marks, because this is more of a negotiation on SOA, how does the EA landscape as an actual conflict. But you would not know it by reading some articles and blog posts on this topic.
When I read about the EA-and SOA-I of the business units that sneak in under-the-art IT radar recalled, then the IT integration and security to play catch-up. Is not very mature, people.
It seems obvious to me: SOA changes the application architecture, and potentially verySoon, your IT infrastructure as well. It makes sense, you talk to your EA before you do something like that. And it seems like EA want to be a part of the discussion from the start-go, even if EA experts not yet worked out all the details about how SOA will fit with EA practices.
But apparently not.
Witness this blog post on SOA without executive support. "Writer Nick Malik is on the merits of a middle-out SOA implementation, as opposed to rigid top-down mandatesand extensive bottom-up projects that grow into SOA "organically".
He is not especially EA. And on fair, I'm not sure what his position on the EA / SOA is about. But he says:
Middle of proponents argue that a small group of people to come together and form a unified approach. ... They will select patterns and naming conventions later that the flexibility to make without providing the ability to now. They are the names of the services they need (without makingthem). You will find this information with the architects (emphasis added) and dev leads, and offer reviews and test harnesses to ensure that services once developed, companies will continue ready.He: The point is: middle, needs one thing: that you communicate with other architects before you build a few services.Of golf course, just saying this, Malik is on the cutting edge of progressive thinking on this topic - at least from that what I have read. My point is not to say Malik's wrong --I do not think he is - or even say that he advocates against EA - because, clearly, he does not come.
Perhaps Malik puts it like this because he advocate the mid-out approach and EA is inherently a top-down discipline. Maybe he takes the SOA project people will have an EA background.
But read what he wrote a few questions raised in my head.
Why is not enterprise architects will automatically have a place in the table on SOA projects? Why exchange of information withArchitects? Why not at least one architect involved in the first place?
Of course we can not only try to blame those who implement SOA. As a part of Computer Business Review Online points out, enterprise architects tend to be - I think that's the technical term - "panic" of SOA.
Perhaps, if enterprise architects would have been from the get-go are involved, they begin to see the benefits of SOA and ways to find it in the EA discipline integration.
