Service technology -- from SOA to cloud to IT service management -- promises many "-ilities": greater agility, flexibility, and reusability. Joe McKendrick explores the challenges and opportunities with service orientation, and how to capitalize on these emerging computing philosophies.
Joe McKendrick is an author, consultant and speaker specializing in trends and developments shaping the technology industry.
Last week, Britton talked about the REST approach, based more on existing Web standards and protocols than newer Web services specifications coming out of standards bodies. IONA CTO Eric Newcomer shares his thoughts on the REST vs.
"Unfortunately, we don't really have anyone in the industry in control of the standards and their evolution.... ...
If you don't like a standard, wait a few days for the next one to come along. There are a lot of standards and would-be standards flying around out there, but too few that you can bet your business on.
One of the most immediate business benefits that can come out of Web services and SOA is that of reuse. Namely, companies or their developers shouldn't have to reinvent the wheel every time they need to build or integrate a new application.
Just to amplify Joe's previous post on BEA's open source strategy, let me offer a Wal-Mart analogy. That may sound strange but bear with me.
Since Web services is based on open, accessible, and (allegedly) universally accepted standards, you'd think there would be more interplay between the Web services and open-source communities. But it hasn't really turned out that way yet.
Bill Gates remains a big believer in the power and potential of Web services. He contends that standards will generate a "more model-based approach to developing applications.
A group calling itself the Integration Consortium predicts that service-oriented architecture development will be the "in" thing for 2005. However, vendors will be duking it out over Enterprise Service Buses.
Loosely Coupled's Phil Wainewright weighs in on Enterprise Service Bus in a recent post: "I doubt many people will be talking about ESB in a year or two," he writes, citing Blue Titan's recent launch of a fairly comprehensive Web services-based messaging infrastructure as a harbinger of things to come. Why introduce a messaging system from anywhere else if an ESB is already in place?
Some more food for thought about the economics of business process outsourcing: A report just out of Datamonitor argues that speech-enabled self-service technology may be a better value proposition than using offshore call center agents for low-level transactions. The report estimates that a company can save 25% to 35% per transaction using speech-enabled self-service solutions versus using a call center in an offshore location.