I did FOSE on Monday, presenting my "SOA Without the Hype" presentation to a good group of people. Mostly government employees or contractors, all looking to see both what SOA is all about and perhaps some ways to approach it. Good group, and I love half day presentations. Just enough time to be informative, but not boring. For the most part we discussed the issues around getting SOA started. Truth-be-told, and I did FOSE on Monday, presenting my “SOA Without the Hype” presentation to a good group of people. Mostly government employees or contractors, all looking to see both what SOA is all about and perhaps some ways to approach it. Good group, and I love half day presentations. Just enough time to be informative, but not boring. For the most part we discussed the issues around getting SOA started. Truth-be-told, and as we’ve said here many times before, it’s about the people, and not the technology. This seems to be a common theme, but still you run into many who are practicing VDA (vendor driven architecture), and by doing so have gotten into big trouble. Hopefully, that’s not you. A few points from the presentation: The approaches employed by SOA are not at all new. Indeed, the patterns of using services are decades old. We’re just using new technology, and have much more capable infrastructure. You need to lead with the ROI of SOA. Don’t attempt to justify it as just something “everyone is doing.” Consider the approach, steps, and procedures around creating an SOA. Selecting technology is step 10, by the way. Not step one. Consider data abstraction layers. They correct issues with existing core databases, and place schema volatility into a single domain. Your first few attempt at SOA should be considered experiments, and thus never be afraid to change your approach, technology, or anything else that you find improves on the end result. Software Development