Two of a Kind: SOA and Web 2.0

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September 24, 2006

Two of a Kind: SOA and Web 2.0

By now, I'm sure many readers have seen the latest line of Apple television/video commercials: the cool, laid-back, relaxed "Mac" guy standing alongside the uptight, somewhat nerdish "PC" guy. The PC guy, Woody-Allenish, is neurotic and full of issues, and even catches the latest "viruses" going around.

I wonder if there could be a similar commercial drawn up for an "SOA" guy versus a "Web 2.0" guy. The SOA guy, of course, is corporate through and through, obsessed with policies, procedures, and security. The laid-backed Web 2.0er, on the other hand, is just busy mashing things up and having a good time.

Ultimately, the SOA and Web 2.0 guy are going to have to learn to work much more closely together, and perhaps their opposing styles will complement each other.

Industry watcher Dion Hinchcliffe has been talking about this meeting of the minds for a while now (his blogs can be found here and here.) Dion is a leading proponent of the thought that both SOA and Web 2.0 are essentially one in the same, as both offer the availability of reusable and rapidly deployable services offered over the network.

Some pundits have speculated whether Web 2.0 -- which includes all the sexy stuff such as Google and wikis -- may eventually usurp more structured and deliberate efforts as SOA. Other industry skeptics -- especially Nick Carr, the skeptic of skeptics -- wondered a few months back how well Web 2.0 could really serve the enterprise.

Dion, however, posits that the convergence is taking place between SOA and Web 2.0 in the form of "Enterprise 2.0." Dion hit the nail right on the head about a year ago when he asked, "Is Web 2.0 the Global SOA?"

As he described it:

"If you do a superficial comparison at least, Web 2.0 is all about autonomous, distributed services, remixability, and is fraught with ownership and boundary/control issues. And yet, Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) is all about, you guessed it, autonomous, distributed services, composite functionality, and is fraught with ownership and boundary/control issues. Sound similar, no? It does seem that we have a classic case of fractal architecture on our hands. Is Web 2.0 actually the most massive instance possible of service-oriented architecture, realized on a worldwide scale and sprawling across the Web? The answer folks is, apparently so."

Dion recently provided examples of traits that will define Enterprise 2.0 architectures, such as: supporting "choice of customer deployment of functionality as a service, and in installed mode," "is architected and priced/sold as a series of services," and "provides process management, configuration, conversion, integration, testing, systems management, end user training tools to minimize implementation and support labor."

Very much in line with the goals of SOA. Stay tuned.

UPDATE: ebizQ has just announced a Webcast, led by Gartner's David Mitchell Smith and moderated by ebizQ's Beth Gold-Bernstein, on the convergence of Web 2.0 and SOA. Details on the Webcast, to be presented October 31st at 12:00 p.m. US Eastern Time, are posted here. .

Posted by joemckendrick in SOA | Digg This | Add to del.icio.us