SOA or SOS? Rationale for a Semantic Service-Oriented Infrastructure

by Arun K. Majumdar

Service-oriented architecture (SOA) is the new sword for business process management (BPM), promising to cut through the old problems of enterprise application integration (EAI) and clear the path for interoperability among heterogeneous systems. Unfortunately, there is a growing and chaotic panoply of choices, recommendations, suggestions, standards, vendor positions, and approaches that mystify and muddy the core issues. SOA solutions, which are supposed to be the ultimate weapon for solving the problems, have exacerbated the situation with buzzwords. If we mix and match vendor solutions, techniques, and architectures without a principled understanding of all the issues, we may end up with a poorly constructed house of cards that can be blown away by the next gust of wind.