The SOA Antidote

Russell Levine writes in the Business Integration Journal about the Myth of the Disappearing Interfaces. If you work in IT, have been involved in some EAI projects, and are a relatively critical thinker, then there probably is not a lot of new information for you. However the piece serves nicely as an antidote to the run-of-the-mill "Service Oriented Architecture", well, pablum.

More good information can be found at Doug Barry's site. Almost too much at once without a trail guide. Better than run-of-the-mill, without a doubt.

From Russell:

• n^2 vs. n comparisons should be considered harmful.
• A clue that there might be a problem with this argument is that these pictures often have applications with names such as A, B, and C.
• Applications along a value chain often have many different connections.
• Ultimately you need to understand data flows to assess the complexity of the integration challenge.
• Data mapping requires intimate knowledge of the data and how it's used.
• You must understand every data relationship. That hard work is unavoidable.
• Any benefit must be balanced against the effort of creating an intermediate, or "canonical", model.
• Portfolios with the critical mass to justify such efforts don't emerge overnight.
• Focus on business benefits.
• Estimate costs with and without the integration technology.
• Be conservative!

There you go.