David Linthicum

As I work with corporate America, as well as the government, I'm finding that services-oriented architectures (SOAs) are like snowflakes - no two are alike. I'm also finding that everyone has their own definition of SOA, and I've seen everything from messaging systems to portals called an SOA. So, who's right? I'm not sure I'm ready to declare somebody's architecture as non-SOA just yet;, however, there are some patterns that are emerging in terms of types of SOAs. I like to refer to these patterns as levels, since they have a tendency to move from the very primitive, or level 0, to the highly sophisticated, or level 5. First, let me offer my definition of SOA, so we have a foundation of what is both correct and pure (tongue firmly in cheek). In short, an SOA is a strategic framework of technology that allows all interesting systems, inside and outside of an organiza... (more)

SOA - Loosely Coupled...What?

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 difference in the component's structure, security model, protocols, and semantics, thus abstracting volatility. This is in contrast to compile-time or runtime binding, which requires that you bind the components at compile time or runtime (synchronous calls), respectively, and also requires that changes ... (more)

SOA World - Approaching SOA Testing

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. If you're willing to take the risk, the return on your SOA investment will come back three fold...that is, if it is a well-tested SOA. Untested SOA could cost you millions. Truth be told, testing SOAs is a complex, disturbed computing problem. You have to learn how to isolate, check, and integrate, assuring that things work at t... (more)

What Will Cloud Computing Bring to Your Bottom Line?

As you remember from Part 1 of this article series, there are 17 steps to Cloudsizing, including: Assess the business. Assess the culture. Assess the value. Understand your data. Understand your services. Understand your processes. Understand the cloud resources. Identify candidate data. Identify candidate services. Identify candidate processes. Create a governance strategy. Create a security strategy. Bind candidate services to data and processes. Relocate services, processes, and information. Implement security. Implement governance. Implement operations. We covered the first ... (more)

Cloud Computing at the IBM Impact Conference

Dave talks about his trip to IBM's Impact Conference, including coverage and commentary around IBM's cloud computing strategy. [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]] ... (more)