Saturday, April 26, 2008

Woah on WOA

Web Oriented Architecture is becoming the new academic discussion from the industry analysts. I feel like I was watching a TV show and someone changed the channel right when the good part was starting. What happened to SOA? We got it all figured out and time to move on to an implementation specific architecture? Just when we start to get the point driven in that services are not about the technology here comes WOA which is very much about the technology.

I don't really think WOA should be used in the same context as SOA. It's not the same thing or even related in my opinion. Using it in the same discussion context as SOA just confuses more an already confused bunch of IT people let alone the business. It may have it's place in the architecture tool box but it's only one tool.

Here is the thing I like about services. It doesn't matter what the underlying implementation is, where it is implemented, or how the services are wired together. It doesn't matter if they are on the external web, internal web, outsourced, Rest style, web service style etc etc etc. It just doesn't matter. If we implement those services a certain way and with a certain set of technologies, do we need another label for it? Does it really provide a value to have another label? I say nope.

What do you think? Is this more analyst mumbo jumbo or does WOA as a term and architecture actually provide value?

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