Analogy: WOA treats symptoms, but SOA the cure for IT complexity

"There is a very specific disease of Enterprise IT that SOA cures. It cures chronic ESSD, or Enterprise Software Stupidity Disease."

Leave it to Miko Matsumura (Software AG) to come up with a clever analogy for all things service-oriented. Miko has been following the WOA-SOA brouhaha I and other analysts have been engaged in, and points out that perhaps while WOA, or Web Oriented Architecture, is good at treating the symptoms of "waxy buildup of IT complexity," SOA is needed for the underlying condition.

As Miko puts it:

"Patient is a decades-old multi-business unit enterprise. Patient medical history includes chronic use of project-funded IT. Blood tests indicate high cholesterol and athlerosclerotic vascular system including brittle point-to-point integration and tightly coupled IT systems. Patient was recently admitted for a myocardial infarction which brought down mission critical systems and was put on a Software as a Service bypass. Business users are experiencing abdominal pain, nausea and vomiting. IT projects appear to be constipated, possibly due to a bowel obstruction. Patent is currently on WOA to reduce fever and swelling and improve short term business results."

However, Miko points out, "the patient requires emergency medical intervention and will be in and out of hospital care for the rest of of their lives unless put on an architectural treatment program with regular governance."