Joe McKendrick, ebizQ's SOA in Action Blogger, is a nationally published author and consultant
with deep knowledge and insights regarding trends and developments in
the technology industry. He is a contributing editor to a number of
national and international publications and Websites including
Database Trends & Applications, ZDNet, and Webservices.Org. He also
serves as analyst for Evans Data Corp., and is lead analyst for Evans'
Web services and enterprise development management issues surveys.
SOA in Action Blog
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« SOA and BPM -- So Happy Together | Main | Four Fundamentals of SOA; All Interelated » June 14, 2007Enterprise Architects vs. SOA Architects: What's the Difference? If enterprise architects act as the "city planners," who worry about the way neighborhoods are developed, and how people and commerce can flow most effectively, then what is the role of SOA architects? Should they function as the service providers, maintaining telecommunications, police and fire services? Or, shouldn't enterprise and SOA architects they be one in the same? These are the questions debated by panelists at the most recent SOA BriefingsDirect podcast, led by Dana Gardner. (Link to podcast here.) Panelists included Steve Nunn, vice president and COO of The Open Group, John Bell, an enterprise architect at Marriott International, Jim Kobelius, and Neil Macehiter. Marriott’s John Bell describes the role of enterprise architect more as a city planner, one who oversees how the entire landscape comes together. “When they’re looking at the entire city, they’re looking at how the various neighborhoods, how the various business zones, etc., fit into that city.” The SOA architect, on the other hand, is focused on delivery of city services and facilitating communication within the city. “My view is that the enterprise architect is at the top of the hierarchy, and at some place, working with the enterprise architect is an SOA architect, and their focus is on, “What are the services that are being delivered, how am I delivering them? What’s the infrastructure I am using to deliver it? Do I need – using that town model — a police station? Do I need a fire station? Do I need a school? Do I need a museum? And, if I do, how do I get that service out to the community or to the entire city, not just an individual neighborhood?” However, Jim Koblieus and Neil Macehiter saw the SOA architect’s role as more expansive than facilitating communications. “The challenge that many SOA architects face is more around understanding what the services are that need to be delivered in a business-meaningful way, not just about communication and plumbing. It’s also about understanding the high-level, business-meaningful services,” Niel observed. Neil also said he finds that trying to make a distinction between SOA and enterprise architects is difficult: “There is a business strategy, there are business processes and priorities, and there are the services we need at a business level. Then, there’s a handoff to what’s currently defined as the SOA architect, who will actually define how those services are deployed in technology terms. So, the distinction is quite blurred. A service-oriented approach is one of the methodologies and the approaches that you can utilize to deliver or to support an enterprise architecture initiative.” Jim said if there is a distinction, he’ll put “enterprise architecture at that very top layer, concerned with the end-to-end set of resources.” that is followed by the SOA architect at the middle layer of development and reuse. At the layer below that, the IT or infrastructure architect handles components such as ESBs. Posted by joemckendrick in SOA | Digg This | Add to del.icio.us Trackback Pings TrackBack URL for this entry:
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