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01.29.09 How To Accurately Define SOA And SaaS  By
Dave Taylor My brother's really psyched that he got a new job with a company that has, as he tells it, the premiere "SOA" application. Rather than seem like the clueless sister, can you give me a brief rundown on what SOA is all about so I can come across as more knowledgeable? Thanks! Dave's Answer: I love family dynamics, where you can't say "SOA? Tell me about it" without it coming back to haunt you for years in the online and physical world. No problem, though, I've got yer back!  "Simplified" view of SOA [Javaworld.com]
"I admit that doesn't make much sense to me either, so let's dig a bit further. The utah.gov site defines SOA a bit more clearly: "SOA is a way of thinking about IT assets as service components. When functions in a large application are made into stand-alone services that can be accessed separately, they are beneficial to several parties." In a nutshell, SOA is a service-based view of business computing where the architecture is developed so that individual components are easily reused and can be deployed faster and more efficiently. Mostly SOA solutions seem to be built around web-based services and offer a simple package of capabilities for offices large and small. They're particularly well suited for modern distributed offices where there are employees scattered throughout the United States or even the world. Two examples: on the user end, check out Google Apps for Business, an attractive package of private-labeled Gmail, Google Docs and additional security that lets you instantly bring up a pretty sophisticated Intranet with document sharing and a variety of other nice features (see http://www.google.com/a/). Many people believe that it's the "plumbing", the backend infrastructure that really define an SOA solution, however, and for them the Amazon Web Services model is a splendid example. We can call AWS the "cloud in cloud computing", if you're familiar with that, but between its on-demand network-based processor and disk space services, the Amazon architectural solution neatly embodies many of the coolest facets of modern network computing. (see http://aws.amazon.com/ for more info) Another buzzword you'll probably encounter with your brother, by the way, is SaaS, which stands for Software as a Service. Again, it's the same basic idea as SOA, it's just the "front end" or "face" of the service oriented architecture. It's probably fair to say that Google Apps for Business is in fact a better example of SaaS than of SOA (see, we're falling into this acronym soup too, aren't we?) Clear now? Probably the best thing you can say to your brother next time you see him is something about whether he means true SOA or whether his company is actually one of the many that confuse SaaS as SOA. You'll probably baffle him, and that'll be for the best. Then you can lord that over him for years to come... Good luck! Comments About the Author: Dave Taylor has been involved with the Internet since 1980 and is internationally known as an expert on both business and technology issues. Holder of an MSEd and MBA, author of twenty books and founder of four startups, he also runs a strategic marketing company and consults with firms seeking the best approach to working with weblogs and social networks. Dave is an award-winning speaker and frequent guest on radio and podcast programs. AskDaveTaylor.com http://www.intuitive.com/blog/ | |||||||||
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