Although I’m trying hard not to use the term Web 2.0 anymore (see: http://www.ask500people.com/questions/do-you-think-people-should-still-be-using-the-term-web-20), a study conducted recently delivers an outcome forcing me to do so. Just so everybody knows what is meant.

A study by BEA  in 11 European countries shows that: “55 per cent of organisations view SOA at the best way to support the use of social networking and Web 2.0 development techniques in their IT infrastructure.” If you look at the previous post, you’ll see that is what we have tried to substantiate there.

“SOA is about helping to increase business competitive advantage by enabling IT to deliver value faster through a more agile infrastructure. Enterprise social computing is about empowering end-users to become more productive and agile in carrying out daily activities,” said Martin Percival, BEA senior technology evangelist for the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region.” Visit his blog here: http://dev2dev.bea.com/cs/user/blog?file=/blog/mpercival/archive/2007/10/european_busine.html 

The European Business Innovation Survey sponsored by software vendor BEA also found that web services is the most popular web technology that organisations will use in the next 12 months as part of their Web 2.0 strategy (cited by 57 per cent of respondents). Collaboration technologies were next most popular for 32 per cent, followed by blogs (27 per cent).

Joe McKendrick summarizes in his blog on ZDNet the developments in the following categories:
- Collaboration
- Mashups
- SaaS (Software as a Service)
See: http://blogs.zdnet.com/service-oriented/?p=976
These categories make a nice start for Web Oriented Architecture categories, I would say.

Hopefully, in due time the Web 2.0 phrase will be used to refer to the period that’s just behind us, and “Web Oriented Architecture” will become the lasting expression… as promoted by this blog.

The press release on the BEA site: http://www.bea.com/framework.jsp?CNT=pr01863.htm&FP=/content/news_events/press_releases/2007

Is the SOA story over?
By Wesley in der Maur, William Rice, Ernst Siegert

For years we have been talking about SOA, and some of us have even been implementing it. Or at least trying to do so. In practice, SOA appears to be failing to deliver on its promises. Why is this? Have we all been fooled by a flawed concept?

We don?t think so.

The concept is ok, and when properly implemented a Service Oriented Architecture should be able to provide the benefits of cost reduction, short time to market, flexibility etc. The problem is not with the concept, but with the execution! To successfully implement a SOA, organizations need to really go for this ? no holding back. To get this kind of commitment, the desire has to come from within the business units and must not be another example of ?IT driving the business?. Such has been the case with SOA, we might say.

To successfully deliver the concept and promises of SOA, a new kid on the block appears to be coming to the rescue. This is the concept of WOA ? Web Oriented Architecture.

One definition (from Gartner) of Web Oriented Architecture: an architectural style that is a substyle of SOA based on the architecture of the WWW with the following additional constraints: globally linked, decentralized, and uniform intermediary processing of application state via self-describing messages.

A few statements from the blogosphere further explaining the concept of WOA:
- Web-Oriented Architecture (WOA) may emerge as a ?lightweight version of SOA? – Gartner?s Nick Gall
- Dion Hinchcliffe?s WOA vision: ?the SOA with reach?
- Pragmatic Service-Oriented Architecture: Introducing the WOA/Client (Architecture Journal)

Examples are to be seen everywhere. More and more companies are beginning to provide (sell) and integrate web services as offered over the internet in to their applications. Internet applications, used primarily for customer interaction at the moment, but also supporting internal business functions, such as Salesforce.com does for CRM processes.
Other examples from our own experience are large insurance companies integrating a State-provided vehicle information service in their car insurance web applications and a large publishing company delivering functionality with integrated content as services for customers to integrate in their own portals.

These examples show us the cost benefits of Web Oriented Architecture ? designing by ?mashing up? ? and the fact that it delivers new sources of income for companies.

So, WOA is positioned as a subset of SOA, a ?lightweight? version. Lightweight because one makes use of what is already ?out there?: the architecture of the World Wide Web. Technology is proven, known and used by everyone. This means low risk, high interoperability and quick and easy to implement. And, most importantly, the business is acquainted with it. They already have been using it in everyday for many years now. So why not use it for the enterprise?

Conclusion: with WOA paving the way by quickly showing successes and expanding the reach, the SOA concept will prove valid and its value. WOA is what SOA should have been.

Please let us know what you think by commenting on this post.

A couple of weeks ago I had a workshop with a customer management team on the topics of Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) and Enterprise Application Integration (EAI). I was chatting away about upwards integration with service orientation and downwards governance by ‘thinking in services’, and all this facilitated by the Enterprise Service Bus (ESB). Then the question came: “But do you actually need a physical service bus?”.

Eeeeh…. There goes my well prepared storyline….

But I remembered following some discussion in the blogosphere on the concept of Web Oriented Architecture (WOA) in the beginning of this year. With interest, I might add.  So my answer was: “Well no, I don’t think so.”

The concept and principles of SOA can apply to architectures, without the use of software suites and hardware platform making this possible. But how exactly?

To find out, I decided to dive in to the matter (again), and see how far along thought on the topic had developed in the blogosphere. Although there is some info scattered around the net, I was a bit disappointed. This is why I decided to create this place to facilitate a discussion on the topic, to see if we can come up with some practical and useful material.

I’ll be writing some thoughts down, hoping to get feedback, and will be actively searching for it. Also, all ‘on topic’ links I will gather here, so this can become a central point of reference.