If SOA is dead, this must be the afterlife

Otherwise, I really can't explain all the renewed interest in SOA of late. As many of you know, WebLayers and Burton Group hosted a webinar on Thursday afternoon. The topic was "SOA: Dead Man Walking in the Cloud?" and based on the sheer volume and level of attendees, it's clear that the SOA conversations are far from over.

Of course, the conversations about the conversations about the continued existence of SOA continue. Loraine Lawson makes a good point of this with regard to the level of activity around SOA and the cloud and how they really are complementary approaches.

What I find interesting about the dialog is the focus on architecture and services and scalability. Now don't get me wrong -- all of these are critical to pulling off a successful I.T. initiative.

Based on Thursday's Q&A in the webinar, I've decided that what I'd like to see - and I'm guessing I'm not the only one - is more talk about business benefits. And when I say this, I don't mean it as a call to action for another ROI calculator (as if we don't have enough of those).

What I mean is that what put us in a pickle with SOA can be boiled down to two major missteps. The first is the focus and debates around the technology. SOAP versus REST. It's all about web services. It's not about web services. If you've been around the SOA space, you know exactly what I'm talking about and I'll even plead guilty to a few of those debates myself. While these conversations were and will continue to be important, we need to get out of our own way in order to get executive support for any major IT initiative.

The second issue was around the lack of demonstrable business value. Let's face it, your typical board room attendee is not likely to tune into a discussion that begins with S.O….what??

Once you fully grasp those two valuable lessons, it's easier to see the how the controversy around the death of SOA actually brings about a new opportunity - a shot at redemption in the afterlife if you will -- to articulate the importance of SOA to the business.

Now I've said this before and I'll say it again. Let's not blow the growing interest in the cloud, along with the renewed faith in SOA, by littering the conversations with jargon and in-the-trenches philosophical debates. I think this cartoon just about sums it up.

The bottom line here is actually the bottom line. Talk in business terms, prove your argument with metrics and financial impact on the bottom line, and you'll convert naysayers into I.T. champions.

BTW ---you can replay the WebLayers/Burton Group webinar here

Jeff.