SOA is not an IT solution, it is an IT disease

1. SOA is a Disease By Paul Brink, January 2010

2. In the Dutch languageSOA is an abbreviation of“Sexueel Overdraagbare Aandoening” Translated in English:Sexually Transmitted Disease

3. In the rest of the worldSOA stand forService Oriented Architecture In the rest of the worldSOA is consideredto be an IT solution

4. But the rest of theworld is wrong!

5. SOA is not an IT solution…SOA is an IT disease

6. A service oriented architecture gives existing systems the flexibility and agility to respond to a business environment which is changing rapidly. Service oriented architectures allow businesses to capitalize on opportunity by: Simpler systems Lowering integration costs Lowering maintenance costs Enhancing architectural flexibility Becoming more agile The SOA promise MythBuster

7. SOA as it was meant to be Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) Clean boundaries between functions Business functions Business functions Business functions Business functions Nicely defined universal services Messages transported through a high end bus Beautifully designed business functions (the ideal architectural building blocks)

8. SOA in the Real World Internalcommunication Overlapping functionality Unwantedfunctionality Missingfunctionality Native proprietarycommunication Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) Different business data Different process steps Missing services (no entry points in the system) To many (unwanted) services Real world (legacy) applications or real world software packages (real world solution building blocks) Beautifully designed business functions (the ideal architectural building blocks)

9. Systems won’t become simpler Why would they? All your legacy applications won’t automatically change when you implement a SOA. In fact you need to change it dramatically or build a lot of code around it to fill the missing functions, to override the unwanted functionality, to clean the existing data and to synchronize all the process steps. The SOA myth: Simpler Systems

10. The SOA myth: Lowering integration costs Integration costs will increase By building adapters? By defining a unified data model and building all the translations between the real life data? By breaking applications open, there where they weren’t supposed to be? By simulating screens, batch processes and native interfaces? No, your integration costs will increase.

11. The SOA myth: Lowering maintenance costs Maintenance costs will increase Apart from your existing legacy applications you will have to maintain much more in your new SOA. For example your brand new Enterprise Service Bus, your under utilized UDDI, your complicated new development platform, your new standards and your new governance structure. The number of components in your architecture will increase and as a result, your maintenance costs as well.

12. The SOA myth: Enhancing architectural flexibility You won’t enhance yourrequired flexibility Yes, your architectural flexibility will be enhanced. But what does this actually mean? That you can change your PowerPoint slides on the spot without someone understanding what the consequences are? You’d like to be flexible in the requirements the business needs. But in your complex IT landscape this will become much harder.

13. The SOA myth: Becoming more agile You’ll become more rigid In a SOA, implementing business changes will require changes in several components. Therefore you’ll need the expertise of several disciplines and development teams. To manage all the required business changes at the same time your project organization will become more complex. You’ll need planners, controllers, coordinators, managers, project boards, steering committees, etc. Synchronizing all these initiatives is virtually impossible.Your organization will become rigid.

14. Be aware when someone is advising you to implement a SOA to solve your problems. Without knowing you’re goals and objectives, without understanding your existing IT landscape and not knowing your actual problems, a service oriented architecture is not always the logical solution. In fact the odds are that with a SOA: Systems won’t become simpler Integration costs will increase Maintenance costs will increase You won’t enhance your required flexibility You’ll become more rigid Be aware of a SOA

15. In most cases a SOA is not an IT solution…SOA is an IT disease

16. Geek & PokeFrom Hype to Hype http://geekandpoke.typepad.com/

17. Paul Brink Website http://www.xs4all.nl/~pjbrink/fotografie/ LinkedIn http://www.linkedin.com/in/pauljohanbrink Flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/paul_brink/ DisclaimerThis is my personal private opinion, not the opinion of the website managers, director or editors or the organization I work for. My goal is to challenge my personal opinion to the opinion of others. “The many are smarter than the few.” So feel free to respond.