Tag Archives: Architecture

So there’s been a lot of blogs lately about SOA tooling including from Dave Linthicum.

He writes:

First, only purchase SOA governance technology, if it’s indeed needed, after you have a complete semantic-, service-, and process-level understanding of the problem domain. Never before.

Second, focus on SOA governance as an approach and practice, not as technology. Create a SOA governance strategy first, and make sure it’s considered during each step.

Finally, and more importantly, make sure that your architecture is independent of the technology you select.

Now I agree wholeheartedly that you should make sure the architecture is technology independent.

I can see where he’s coming from with respect to having technique come first and tooling second. But there are some very key flaws in this reasoning.

His post here says:

The end result is you spend four months with the Thigh Master and the Abdominizer and have made little progress. While the technology promised quick results and seemed easier than doing the “real work,” the reality is somewhat more sobering. There are just no short cuts to SOA and SOA governance. So, get your people and process issues solved first, focus on understanding, define your approach, and then look for any helpful technology.

While I do agree that there’s no shortcut with SOA Adoption skills and that skills are critical to adoption, the relationship between tools and skills is completely wrongly stated here. The metaphor of the Abdominizer seems to indicate that tooling for SOA Governance is like a fancy toy that ends up in your closet.

This could not be further from the truth and is a dangerous way of looking at it. Without governance and policy enforcement capabilities, your SOA will run away from you and eventually be unable to attain any significant scale. A better analogy may be the tools that a sculptor uses.

Now you might want to get started sculpting wood, in which case you need simple chisel and hammer. Eventually you may move to marble. You could argue that in the beginning, clay sculptures that require no tools might be best. But eventually if your architecture is going to be the basis for a strong implementation, you will go to marble.

So I dont mind you practicing on clay, but dont think your final SOA is going to be built out of clay. Now a high quality sculpting chisel and hammer is useless in the hands of a moron. But even Michaelangelo will not try to carve marble with his bare hands.

Try doing SOA adoption without governance tooling, both runtime and lifecycle tooling. You’ll be in hot water fast.

My 2 cents.
Miko