SOA Packages Are Just Too Darned Confusing

OK, that headline might seem a little awkward coming from a guy who works for a company that makes an SOA package, but it's just gotta be said. By and large, what most companies put out there in the way of SOA packages are just too darned big, too darned cobbled together, and ultimately too darned confusing.

Take as an example this article about HP's "new" approach to SOA: it's all about "runtime governance." The interesting thing there, is that I actually agree with HP's philosophy to a certain extent (the good bits being about operations, monitoring, quality, etc.), but being the behemoth that they are, HP simply couldn't resist in making this yet another piece of OpenView. So what is that now, eighteen gagillion sub-applications in OpenView? And, how many of those came from acquisitions that are still so fresh (in big company terms) that they are only part of OpenView in name and branding only?

HP has the right idea here, but they aren't going to be able to execute to that idea, IMO. By the time you peel the onion of OpenView to get at the good bits, you've been forced into buying more than what you need, tying yourself to a consulting sub-industry that specializes in implementing it, and added yet more complexity to something that's already pretty darned complex: solving your problems with an SOA approach. It's too much, and for anyone other than megacorps that will throw tons of money, bodies, and time into it, it's almost certain to fail and/or cost more than the benefits it will yield. Great idea, bad execution.

So, as much as I try to stay non-salesy in this blog, I think it does bear stating that for a lot of the SOA consumers out there, that a solution like that of the Interactive Server suite which focuses on precisely what HP is preaching -- operations, runtime governance/management, technology agnosticism -- but also promises an easy to implement, easy to understand, and easy to manage package, is where they need to be looking. Most IT departments don't have the time or the personnel to have OpenView or WebSphere or WebLogic specialists in-house and/or can't afford a team of consultants. So, they certainly need to be looking at solutions that they can get up and running and day-to-day manage on their own...or like many other SOA pilgrims, they'll get left on the side of the road, never reaching their goal.

SOA Meets Gaming?

At their recent SOA-centric conference called "IMPACT 2007," IBM announced a new system called Innov8 -- a 3-D gaming environment aimed at teaching people the skills they need to intelligent deploy SOA and BPM initiatives.

Thumbs up for creativity (which is no surprise, really, since Innov8 came out of the IBM Case Study competition courtesy of some grad students at Duke and UNC), but I'm just not sure if this will really work. When you think about it, the very people who would be drawn to learning things via a gaming interface are also the kinds of people who probably don't need a lot of "re-education" about concepts such as SOA and BPM...they are already predisposed to "getting it."

This would almost be like creating a PlayStation game aimed at teaching your older relatives how to fix the flashing colon on their VCR's LCD display -- if they don't get the one, they certainly aren't going to get the other, and conversely, if they can figure out how to do one then they wouldn't need it to teach them how to do the other.

So, it's an interesting concept, and it certainly shows that SOA and BPM are getting so pervasive as a concept that people are trying to attack it from just about any angle, and it buttresses the idea that SOA and BPM really do go hand-in-hand. But, I'm just not sure if it will really have the kind of IMPACT (no pun intended) IBM is hoping it will have.

Here are some screenshots from IBM of the Innov8 interface:
http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/photo/21564.wss
http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/photo/21565.wss

Hilarious!

Ok, ok, it came from another SOA technology company, but I gotta give credit where credit is due: this is hilarious and all-too-accurate. Check out this funny YouTube viral marketing piece about SOA initiatives. (By way of my pal Robb over at Contact CenteRevolution).

http://contactcenterevolution.blogspot.com/2007/05/dolls-re-enact-soa-confusion-in-cute.html

Gee, Ya Think?!

Ok, ok, I'm going to try not to be too "I told ya so," on this one, but it's really hard not to. I'm seeing more and more titles like the one on the article here:

http://searchwebservices.techtarget.com/originalContent/0,289142,sid26_gci1238154,00.html?track=sy80

that say basically "XYZ Sees SOA and BPM Going Well Together," and I just catch myself saying (aloud sometimes) "Gee, ya think?!"

This really could be a topic for an entire book, not just a blog entry, but it did seem worth jotting down that while I'm glad to see more and more analysts and experts coming around, it is a bit frustrating to see it having taken this long -- and maybe more frustrating to see each of them announcing it as if they were the first ones to come up with the idea. It just makes good sense, and it's about time!

More on this topic soon, guaranteed!

Let's Get It Started

Every blog has to have its first post, so here it is for FredOnTech.

The idea behind this blog is for it to be a place for me to highlight tech-related themes that are currently piquing my interest...and hopefully therefore might be of interest to others as well. Currently that consists of things like Service Oriented Architectures (SOA), Business Process Management (BPM), Enterprise Application Integration (EAI), and other enterprise-level approaches to getting things done intelligently.

While I happen to work for a software company which provides some really intriguing software targeting these areas of interest to me, I'm going to do my best to let this blog be much more general and thematic than to be about Interactive Softworks' products...I promise.