Web 2.0 and SOA Power Panel on SYS-CON TV

posted Tuesday, 13 December 2005

One of the more interesting trends I'm seeing in software is the rapid move towards simpler services like RSS and REST for connecting systems of all kinds together. It's not that SOAP and WS-* aren't terrific, but they can be much harder to use and often require white-robed experts to apply properly. George Morimisato, one of the co-authors of the SSE standard has been quoted as saying "the chance of a standard being adopted is inversely proportional to its complexity." And folks, some of our SOA technologies are just too unwieldy.

I've been talking a lot lately about the bustling world-wide information ecosystem, with the vast networks of blogs, feeds, filters, aggregators, search engines, mash-ups and more as creating a Global SOA (SOA definition here). I originally explored these ideas seriously a few months ago and received quite a bit of encouraging feedback. Further discussions have resulted in some invited speaking engagements here in the DC area. At these events I discuss Web 2.0 and its close connection, and outright overlap, with SOA concepts like composite applications, software as a service, information supply chains and more. It does seem that people are quite eager for easier ways to build SOAs.

And in case you're not sure any of this is important, Gartner has recently claimed that by 2008, 80% of all software development will be based on SOA principles. SOA, like Web 2.0, is the future.

Web 2.0 as Global SOA Value Proposition

Simpler Integration is Faster and Higher Quality: I talked about this in my article 5 Reasons Why Web 2.0 Matters, but Web 2.0 concepts specifically encourage using simpler, easier to use standards and more malleable integration techniques. Mash-ups instead of composite applications, RSS/REST instead of SOAP, etc. My assertion is that these simpler approachs are cheaper to build, easier to maintain, and less prone to breakage.

Stronger Loose Coupling: Traditional SOA technologies force you to control the other end of the conversation. While sometimes this is absolutely necessary, old school SOA requires it whether you need it or not. The Web 2.0 approach to integration doesn't encourage this absolute control and fosters a much more lightweight, loosely-coupled syndication approach instead of forceful integration.

A Complete Tolerance Continuum: Mainstream behind-the-firewall SOA tends to have an absolute, rigid view of functionality and integration. Web 2.0 is more free wheeling, though admittedly sometimes to a fault. So I'm not advocating the replacement of our SOA tools and technologies at all, just the addition of Web 2.0 techniques both for lighter weight integration and for better software including architectures of participation, real-time feedback mechanisms, social immersion, tagging/folksonomies for organizing information instead of taxonomies, data as the new functionality, etc.

Recently, Jeremy Geelan, Group Publisher over SYS-CON's terrific IT magazines including the SOA Web Services Journal and the Java Developer’s Journal (and who is quite a blogger himself), was kind enough to invite me to a panel discussion of these ideas. Thus last week, Thad Scheer, CEO of Sphere of Influence, and I trekked to the Reuter's TV studio in Times Square and taped the Web 2.0 and SOA Power Panel which explores these topics. If you're interested in Web 2.0 or SOA and have 40 minutes or so, I definitely encourage you take a look and hear about these thought provoking and exciting concepts.