Ten ways to tell it's not SOA

Service Oriented Architecture SOA Articles : "Ten ways to tell it's not SOA" -- and a few more

Joe McKendrick knocked it out of the park this week with his latest entry, "Ten ways to tell it's not SOA." A few of my favorites:

"1) If a vendor tells you that you need to buy a suite to get to SOA ... it's not SOA. SOA means complete freedom from suites and integrated packages."

"2) If a vendor is trying to sell you hardware ... it's not SOA. Enough said."

"6) If your CIO is clueless about what's going on with shared services ... it's not SOA. To truly function, SOA-based infrastructures need to cross organizational boundaries, and it takes someone at the management level to bring these efforts together. Otherwise, again, it's services in silos."

"7) If the IT department is running the whole show ... it's not SOA. Sorry IT folks, but SOA needs to have the business heavily involved in the effort as well."

Of course, I have a few more of my own:

11) If this is a change in "paradigm" and not a change in "architecture" ... it's not SOA.

12) If your SOA vendor uses the term "agility" over 10 times in any given presentation, chances are you're not getting agility ... and it's also not SOA.

13) If the enterprise architect is going to enterprise architecture conferences, chances are ... it's not SOA. However, there will be a lot of governance.

14) If somebody calls something an "SOA application," chances are ... it's not SOA.

15) If somebody says "services orient-en-ta-ted," it's not only SOA, but you need to fire that person. (Unless they're British.)

Enough said on my end.

Source: Service Oriented Architecture SOA articles at InfoWorld.com