Marc Rix

Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) has emerged as a promising harbinger of agility, but is certainly not without its critics. Although SOA is not a new concept, it's not a mainstream approach and has not yet demonstrated widespread, repeatable success. It's no surprise then that it's often met with passionate resistance. Given the lack of SOA case studies and the fact that it usually demands a dramatic departure from the norm, SOA is often sidelined to make way for the more traditional, generally accepted point-to-point (P2P) integration approach. In the absence of objective SOA performance data, the industry needs a simple model that compares the distinguishing characteristics of SOA and the P2P approach on a fundamental level so that we can make more objective judgments about the fit of SOA in our enterprises. This article presents such a model and demystifies t... (more)

Long-Tail SOA and the Mythology of Re-Use

Not all services are created equal. It would be great if implementing SOA were simply a matter of applying a standard design pattern to all services. Once IT had identified and codified an optimal design standard, services could be stamped out in assembly-line fashion until the IT landscape had been transformed. Unfortunately, we don’t live in a cookie-cutter service Utopia. Different Strokes for Different Folks Services exist in all shapes, sizes, colors, and flavors. What’s more, they’re not all conducive to the same design approaches. Services are the modern ... (more)