Dave Linthicum recently offered a somewhat dour assessment of the SOA market, determining that there at least five things killing SOA as we know it these days: Venture capitalists (by micromanaging SOA vendors); Sarbanes-Oxley (by scaring away SOA vendors); Big consulting firms (by mismanaging SOA projects); SOA skill shortages; and Vendors that still promote “SOA in a box.” I agree that [...]

When it comes to mashups, just do it.

Are there any “telltale signs” that an organization is missing the governance boat when it comes to efforts to effectively deploy SOA methodologies? Todd Biske, enterprise architect extraordinaire and author of the recently published work on SOA Governance, observes that many organizations may have conflicting priorities that emerge when it comes to SOA-based projects. “Telltale [...]

These are times that try banks’ souls.  Over the past few months, some financial services companies have been vaporized, and others have been absorbed or merged to save their skins. It’s possible that SOA efforts that have been underway at these organizations in recent years may have also saved their skin. That’s because most of these [...]

Is SOA just the latest bandwagon nobody wants to miss -- or something deeper?

As observed in previous posts, employment prospects for enterprise architects remain bullish, since many organizations are challenged with integration and IT-business alignment. Over at the Informatica Perspectives site, I posted a piece spotlighting the five key qualities to look for in an enterprise architect, circa 2009. Here they are — note the emphasis on people skills: 1) [...]

The economy will have its ups and downs, but SOA needs to be more than a tactical move for the downsides

Quote of the week: “[Independent business units] are constantly seeking to diverge in order to meet the specific needs of their customers. At the same time IT continues to work towards increased centralization. As you can imagine, this is creating some tension…. Is SOA the way that this increasing tension might be relieved in [...]

'On the bright side, 70% of our initiatives fail anyway'

What can go wrong with SOA? Let me count the ways. Better yet,  Miko Matsumura, Bjoern Brauel, and Jignesh Shah, all with SoftwareAG, have done the counting for us, in a new book that shows how to overcome various SOA issues, called “SOA Adoption for Dummies.” (Available for download here.) Here are some of the issues that [...]