David S. Linthicum is an internationally known thought leader in the EAI, SOA, and Web 2.0 space. He is also the former CEO of the Linthicum Group, LLC, a leading think tank in the area of enterprise architecture and use of next generation Internet. Moreover, he was the CTO of Mercator Software and has held key management roles with a number of organizations including CTO of Software AG, Mobil Oil, EDS, AT&T, and Ernst and Young. Linthicum was an associate professor of computer science for eight years, and continues to lecture at major technical colleges and universities. He keynotes at many leading technology conferences, and has several well read columns and blogs. He has authored 10 books, 3 which were best sellers, including the ground breaking books “Enterprise Application Integration” and “B2B Application Integration.
The Web is slowly changing from a visual resource designed to externalize information to people, to a non-visual resource that's able to facilitate machine-to-machine communications. The catalysts of this change are non-visual communications that are enabled using APIs, or Application ...
While the number of SaaS providers grows, as well as enterprise acceptance, we are really not breaking new ground. In essence, today's SaaS providers offer visual systems, meaning they communicate with a human being. They also provide a single visual interface, and the users have to ta...
We've seen the hype – dynamic applications created by combining remote services that combine both application behavior and data into on-demand business applications that are as easy to change as they are to create. The reality was more evolutionary than revolutionary, but today we ar...
According to the Burton Group, the issues around SOA are not so much about technology and complexity as they are about the people and the processes within an enterprise. Indeed, in a recent article by Jon Brodkin, some of these issues are highlighted. The core issue is that IT thinks t...
It's important to remember that there is a huge resource being created on the Web these days in terms of both services and content. This includes access to SaaS applications (that are better than their enterprise-bound counterparts), service marketplaces, and even mash-able application...
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand that mashups are moving from things that are conceptual and fun, to things that are productive and businesslike. The fact is, developers are leveraging mashups to solve all sorts of business problems these days, and the speed to producti...
It's what you don't see about the emerging Web that has everyone excited these days. Namely, it's the powerful application programming interfaces, or APIs. APIs are nothing new and have been traditionally cryptic and difficult to use. However, the advent of Web services along with the ...
If you read this column and listen to my podcasts, you know that I call SOA what SOA is - an architectural pattern. In many instances, SOA is a vital component of healthy enterprise architecture. Indeed, I've provided some keynote talks around this very topic at about half-a-dozen ente...
As I've been stating for the past five years: if you want to provide real value to your enterprise, SOA should extend out of the firewall and into the Internet. However, this was not universally accepted by the rank-and-file SOA guys. Generally speaking, most viewed SOA as something th...
I get these about once a week: an e-mail from a Yahoo or Google e-mail account that talks about issues within a large enterprise that are related to building their first instance of SOA. The fact is that most of these e-mails are not around proper approaches or the right enabling techn...
Many SOA projects are created out of hype, not need. Clearly many enterprises are 'managing by magazine' and are more concerned about doing something cool rather than doing something helpful. You know the difference, and I'm sure there are both types of projects in your organization to...
Architectures are like archaeology; in essence, layers upon layers of systems, applications, databases, and connections, typically built or procured to solve a tactical problem. Many corporations talk a good game and brag about the strategic long-term direction of the enterprise archit...
While few will disagree that the inefficiencies of existing enterprise architectures have reached a critical level, many count on 'flying under the radar' of those who look at a company's efficiencies. Let's face it; enterprise architecture is very technical and difficult to understand...
Last month I wrote about vendor-driven architectures (VDA), and I had a few vendors ask me to look on the other side of the fence. In essence, to consider how vendors can better address the needs of the customer, considering the new drivers with SOA. Truth be told, I can't believe the ...
When looking at technology buying patterns in the world of SOA, there's one common thread. The Global 2000, and many government agencies, are purchasing from their existing vendors, no matter what the needs or requirements. I call these solutions purchasing 'comfort technologies' since...
With the advent of Web services and SOA, we've been seeking to create architectures and systems that are more loosely coupled. Loosely coupled systems provide many advantages including support for late or dynamically binding to other components while running, and can mediate the differ...
To mark a new standard in the SOA space, I create a Google Alert and sift through the pile of links returned to get the scope of its maturation. I'm currently tracking over 60 standards, starting with SOAP and XML (XML happened way before Google was cool).
So, does testing change with SOA? You bet it does. Unless you're willing to act now, you may find yourself behind the curve as SOA becomes systemic to all that is enterprise architecture, and we add more complexity to get to an agile and reusable state.
Making solutions scale is nothing new. However, the SOA technology and approaches employed recently are largely untested with higher application and information and service management traffic loads. SOA implementers are happy just to get their solutions up and running, but, in many cas...
If you've kept up with SaaS and SOA you know that Salesforce.com does an on-demand SOA solution. Apex is its on-demand development and deployment platform, including a complete development environment, programming language, database, and now the ability to create, expose, and consume W...
Here we go again. While the paint is still wet on this new Web 2.0 stuff, many SOA vendors and large analysts firms are calling their market SOA 2.0. It's one of the silliest things I've heard in a long while, and both the analysts and vendors who use this term should be ashamed of the...
While the notion of SOA continues to emerge, those who are implementing SOAs today are faced with a variety of challenges, including the complexities of SOA, and the work involved with understanding their existing problem domain and requirements. Those who want to get SOA right the fir...
This is the larger issue, as I see it, and is very visible to me working both in the world of SOA and the world of enterprise architecture. So, why are they different worlds? Moreover, what is enterprise architecture, and how does it fit with reference models and reference architecture...
The SOA reference architecture (RA) provides a bridge between the concepts and vocabulary defined by the SOA Reference model and the implementation of a SOA. The SOA reference architecture models the abstract architectural elements for a SOA independent of the technologies, protocols, ...
I spent a few hours of my weekend attempting to research and define these concepts a bit better, in essence, taking everyone's opinions and normalizing them so they make better sense. What I found were many of the same notions, defined differently, but all attempting to solve the same ...
First, the history. Data integration is the name the vendors have adopted to replace the ETL (Extract Translate Load), data cleansing, and data warehousing tools of days gone by. These tools actually pre-date the notion of EAI, and were really the first sets of technology designed to d...
I'm consulting now...at the project and strategy levels...and finding that a lot of real work needs to be done to get SOAs up and running. For most organizations, the first step of their SOA project is to figure out how much this SOA will cost. So you can budget appropriately and get t...
A few of my clients are now looking to staff their first inroads into SOA, their first project where something actually happens beyond the investigation. So...how many people are needed on the project? Who are they? What are their roles? Here are some rough guidelines based upon my exp...
As we move to next-generation enterprise architectures using newer notions such as Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), there's a need for a dynamic Web interface that can layer over services and provide more value to the enterprise. Moreover, the enterprise in general can benefit from...
Working directly on SOA projects as an independent I'm exposed to many more organizations than when I was building technology. As such, I see some common patterns or issues emerging. The largest and most disturbing is the fact that there seems to be a huge chasm yawning between the tra...
Last month an alliance of leading vendors announced progress on specifications to define a language-neutral programming model for application development in SOA environments. They call this specification Open SOA Collaboration. In essence, they are proposing a new standard to create an...
Right now the implementation of SOAs seems involve much more hype than actual work. However, there are some patterns beginning to emerge, or, procedures the implementers are doing right to insure success. These patterns are not always obvious, so perhaps this is a good time to learn th...
Let's face it, WS-BPEL 1.1 was not a great standard, and left so much out that many end users and vendors found it useless. In response, the vendors put a ton of proprietary extensions in their BPEL 1.1-based products, thus diluting its value to the point of 'Why bother?' This was a di...
What is unique about an SOA is that it's as much of a strategy as a set of technologies, and it's really more of a journey than a destination. Moreover, it's a notion that is dependent upon specific technologies or standards, such as Web services and interface technology, but really re...
So what's hot these days in the world of SOA? Governance, registries, orchestration...? Nope. As folks looking to implement SOA seek that first killer project the emphasis is on what to do, not what you use, and that's exactly the right way to think. As SOA becomes more of a reality am...
It has come to my attention that there are really two kinds of SOA technology vendors out there, old school and new school - each offering very different approaches to solving the SOA problem. I'm not going to mention any particular vendors, but you guys can guess who they are.
There is a lot of talk about how SOA will significantly lower the need for developers, thus the savings of SOA. This will be accomplished through the promise of reuse that's driving many toward the SOA light. However, I'm not sure we'll see a reduction in development with the advent of...
I caught a review in Fast Company of an interview that Craig Newmark of Craigslist had with ABC's Nightline News. I didn't see the interview myself, but Fast Company did a good job highlighting the more important points, including the fact that Craigslist, which offer free classified a...
David S. Linthicum is an internationally known thought leader in the EAI, SOA, and Web 2.0 space. He is also the former CEO of the Linthicum Group, LLC, a leading think tank in the area of enterprise architecture and use of next generation Internet. Moreover, he was the CTO of Mercator Software and has held key management roles with a number of organizations including CTO of Software AG, Mobil Oil, EDS, AT&T, and Ernst and Young. Linthicum was an associate professor of computer science for eight years, and continues to lecture at major technical colleges and universities. He keynotes at many leading technology conferences, and has several well read columns and blogs. He has authored 10 books, 3 which were best sellers, including the ground breaking books “Enterprise Application Integration” and “B2B Application Integration.
The Web is slowly changing from a visual resource designed to externalize information to people, to a non-visual resource that's able to facilitate machine-to-machine communications. The catalysts of this change are non-visual communications that are enabled using APIs, or Application ...
While the number of SaaS providers grows, as well as enterprise acceptance, we are really not breaking new ground. In essence, today's SaaS providers offer visual systems, meaning they communicate with a human being. They also provide a single visual interface, and the users have to ta...
We've seen the hype – dynamic applications created by combining remote services that combine both application behavior and data into on-demand business applications that are as easy to change as they are to create. The reality was more evolutionary than revolutionary, but today we ar...
According to the Burton Group, the issues around SOA are not so much about technology and complexity as they are about the people and the processes within an enterprise. Indeed, in a recent article by Jon Brodkin, some of these issues are highlighted. The core issue is that IT thinks t...
It's important to remember that there is a huge resource being created on the Web these days in terms of both services and content. This includes access to SaaS applications (that are better than their enterprise-bound counterparts), service marketplaces, and even mash-able application...
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand that mashups are moving from things that are conceptual and fun, to things that are productive and businesslike. The fact is, developers are leveraging mashups to solve all sorts of business problems these days, and the speed to producti...
It's what you don't see about the emerging Web that has everyone excited these days. Namely, it's the powerful application programming interfaces, or APIs. APIs are nothing new and have been traditionally cryptic and difficult to use. However, the advent of Web services along with the ...
If you read this column and listen to my podcasts, you know that I call SOA what SOA is - an architectural pattern. In many instances, SOA is a vital component of healthy enterprise architecture. Indeed, I've provided some keynote talks around this very topic at about half-a-dozen ente...
As I've been stating for the past five years: if you want to provide real value to your enterprise, SOA should extend out of the firewall and into the Internet. However, this was not universally accepted by the rank-and-file SOA guys. Generally speaking, most viewed SOA as something th...
I get these about once a week: an e-mail from a Yahoo or Google e-mail account that talks about issues within a large enterprise that are related to building their first instance of SOA. The fact is that most of these e-mails are not around proper approaches or the right enabling techn...
Many SOA projects are created out of hype, not need. Clearly many enterprises are 'managing by magazine' and are more concerned about doing something cool rather than doing something helpful. You know the difference, and I'm sure there are both types of projects in your organization to...
Architectures are like archaeology; in essence, layers upon layers of systems, applications, databases, and connections, typically built or procured to solve a tactical problem. Many corporations talk a good game and brag about the strategic long-term direction of the enterprise archit...
While few will disagree that the inefficiencies of existing enterprise architectures have reached a critical level, many count on 'flying under the radar' of those who look at a company's efficiencies. Let's face it; enterprise architecture is very technical and difficult to understand...
Last month I wrote about vendor-driven architectures (VDA), and I had a few vendors ask me to look on the other side of the fence. In essence, to consider how vendors can better address the needs of the customer, considering the new drivers with SOA. Truth be told, I can't believe the ...
When looking at technology buying patterns in the world of SOA, there's one common thread. The Global 2000, and many government agencies, are purchasing from their existing vendors, no matter what the needs or requirements. I call these solutions purchasing 'comfort technologies' since...
With the advent of Web services and SOA, we've been seeking to create architectures and systems that are more loosely coupled. Loosely coupled systems provide many advantages including support for late or dynamically binding to other components while running, and can mediate the differ...
To mark a new standard in the SOA space, I create a Google Alert and sift through the pile of links returned to get the scope of its maturation. I'm currently tracking over 60 standards, starting with SOAP and XML (XML happened way before Google was cool).
So, does testing change with SOA? You bet it does. Unless you're willing to act now, you may find yourself behind the curve as SOA becomes systemic to all that is enterprise architecture, and we add more complexity to get to an agile and reusable state.
Making solutions scale is nothing new. However, the SOA technology and approaches employed recently are largely untested with higher application and information and service management traffic loads. SOA implementers are happy just to get their solutions up and running, but, in many cas...
If you've kept up with SaaS and SOA you know that Salesforce.com does an on-demand SOA solution. Apex is its on-demand development and deployment platform, including a complete development environment, programming language, database, and now the ability to create, expose, and consume W...
Here we go again. While the paint is still wet on this new Web 2.0 stuff, many SOA vendors and large analysts firms are calling their market SOA 2.0. It's one of the silliest things I've heard in a long while, and both the analysts and vendors who use this term should be ashamed of the...
While the notion of SOA continues to emerge, those who are implementing SOAs today are faced with a variety of challenges, including the complexities of SOA, and the work involved with understanding their existing problem domain and requirements. Those who want to get SOA right the fir...
This is the larger issue, as I see it, and is very visible to me working both in the world of SOA and the world of enterprise architecture. So, why are they different worlds? Moreover, what is enterprise architecture, and how does it fit with reference models and reference architecture...
The SOA reference architecture (RA) provides a bridge between the concepts and vocabulary defined by the SOA Reference model and the implementation of a SOA. The SOA reference architecture models the abstract architectural elements for a SOA independent of the technologies, protocols, ...
I spent a few hours of my weekend attempting to research and define these concepts a bit better, in essence, taking everyone's opinions and normalizing them so they make better sense. What I found were many of the same notions, defined differently, but all attempting to solve the same ...
First, the history. Data integration is the name the vendors have adopted to replace the ETL (Extract Translate Load), data cleansing, and data warehousing tools of days gone by. These tools actually pre-date the notion of EAI, and were really the first sets of technology designed to d...
I'm consulting now...at the project and strategy levels...and finding that a lot of real work needs to be done to get SOAs up and running. For most organizations, the first step of their SOA project is to figure out how much this SOA will cost. So you can budget appropriately and get t...
A few of my clients are now looking to staff their first inroads into SOA, their first project where something actually happens beyond the investigation. So...how many people are needed on the project? Who are they? What are their roles? Here are some rough guidelines based upon my exp...
Working directly on SOA projects as an independent I'm exposed to many more organizations than when I was building technology. As such, I see some common patterns or issues emerging. The largest and most disturbing is the fact that there seems to be a huge chasm yawning between the tra...
Last month an alliance of leading vendors announced progress on specifications to define a language-neutral programming model for application development in SOA environments. They call this specification Open SOA Collaboration. In essence, they are proposing a new standard to create an...
Right now the implementation of SOAs seems involve much more hype than actual work. However, there are some patterns beginning to emerge, or, procedures the implementers are doing right to insure success. These patterns are not always obvious, so perhaps this is a good time to learn th...
Let's face it, WS-BPEL 1.1 was not a great standard, and left so much out that many end users and vendors found it useless. In response, the vendors put a ton of proprietary extensions in their BPEL 1.1-based products, thus diluting its value to the point of 'Why bother?' This was a di...
What is unique about an SOA is that it's as much of a strategy as a set of technologies, and it's really more of a journey than a destination. Moreover, it's a notion that is dependent upon specific technologies or standards, such as Web services and interface technology, but really re...
So what's hot these days in the world of SOA? Governance, registries, orchestration...? Nope. As folks looking to implement SOA seek that first killer project the emphasis is on what to do, not what you use, and that's exactly the right way to think. As SOA becomes more of a reality am...
It has come to my attention that there are really two kinds of SOA technology vendors out there, old school and new school - each offering very different approaches to solving the SOA problem. I'm not going to mention any particular vendors, but you guys can guess who they are.
There is a lot of talk about how SOA will significantly lower the need for developers, thus the savings of SOA. This will be accomplished through the promise of reuse that's driving many toward the SOA light. However, I'm not sure we'll see a reduction in development with the advent of...
I caught a review in Fast Company of an interview that Craig Newmark of Craigslist had with ABC's Nightline News. I didn't see the interview myself, but Fast Company did a good job highlighting the more important points, including the fact that Craigslist, which offer free classified a...
