Joe McKendrick does a great job in defining the relationship between the "Web 2.0" and SOA in his latest posting. "There's no question that SOA has been a tough sell in many organizations. Conversely, the response to Web 2.0 has been almost a cult-like following -- many end users can't get enough of these online tools. How can SOA proponents glom onto some of this enthusiasm? Some experts say that the lightweigh Joe McKendrick does a great job in defining the relationship between the “Web 2.0” and SOA in his latest posting. “There’s no question that SOA has been a tough sell in many organizations. Conversely, the response to Web 2.0 has been almost a cult-like following — many end users can’t get enough of these online tools. How can SOA proponents glom onto some of this enthusiasm? Some experts say that the lightweight, user-friendly techniques seen in the Web 2.0 experience can serve as SOA’s best selling tool. Some even say that eventually, the two worlds may even blend to the point where they are indistinguishable.” Of course, if you’ve been reading this blog and listening to the Podcast you already know that I’ve been waving my hands for years about the synergy between the emerging Web and SOA. No brainier if you ask me, considering the number of services that are now available on the Web, and the value of leveraging those services within the enterprise, using SOA approaches. It’s actually surprising to me that people are just getting this now. Think about this logically. You have a collection of services, and other resources, accessible over the Web and you’re able to combine those services into solutions (e.g., Mashups). Better yet, you’re able to recombine those services into new solutions as your needs change, and again, and again…you get the idea. That sounds like an architectural pattern to me, providing the advantage of agility. My colleague Ron Schmelzer, of course, has his own opinions on this topic… “Web services and SOA are two very different things, meant to serve different purposes.” “The concept of SOA actually predates Web services by at least five or six years. The main proponents of service oriented architecture at that time created architecture around CORBA. The use of Web services technology is only appropriate for certain circumstances; it’s not appropriate for all uses of service oriented architecture. For example, I wouldn’t want a mobile device sitting on a network consuming heavy Web service and protocols.” Actually, Ron is correct in that SOA is architecture, and a collection of Web services is not architecture. However, I think the emerging Web can be more than just a bunch of Web services, indeed we’re moving quickly to a time when most of the major architectural patterns, including SOA, can exist on the emerging Web taking advantage of all of the resources that the Web has to offer. It’s evolving now, and I’m happy to call it a “Global SOA” when indeed it is a “Global SOA.” We’re getting there, and I love it. Software Development