SOA and the Cloud: If It's Gonna Work, You Gotta Plan

Sometimes, analysts, consultants and other experts enjoy a good argument over semantics. They like to get into disagreements over nuances. If you asked them, they’d tell you these seemingly academic discussions are of great importance. But as you stand there, with squinty eyes and a furrowed brow, trying to puzzle out just what the point is, you begin to suspect that maybe, just maybe, it’s not so important after all.

That’s kind of how I feel about a recent argument that’s broken out about cloud and SOA – and more specifically, about how the word “service” is applied in each context.

Recently, Gartner Research Vice President and fellow David Mitchell Smith warned that companies shouldn’t assume that building a service-oriented architecture will prepare them for the cloud. The crux of the problem seems to be that “service” means one thing in terms of SOA and another when it’s used to talk about the cloud.

In SOA, as Smith explains it, a service is a component, something you call to do something. In cloud, the word “service” is used more in terms of the customer – as in, you’re providing a service or function to the customer.

read full article at: SOA and the Cloud: If It’s Gonna Work, You Gotta Plan | Blogs | ITBusinessEdge.com.