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Wednesday 14th July 2004
FIVE POINT PLAN FOR WEB SERVICES AND SOA
| CONCLUSION
There will always be people that will say "I was really glad that we delayed moving into client/server! A conservative approach allows others to make the mistakes and decreases the risks of technology change". However there is today overwhelming evidence that SOA and Web Services will be the core architectural approach and interoperability technology for the foreseeable future, and there is business advantage to be gained by acquiring experience now.
The priority for all enterprises and government departments is making progress with the structural SOA issues. Consequently SOA is actually more important than introducing Web Services interoperability, and therefore relative immaturity of protocols should not stop SOA activity.
LINKS
(1) CBDI Web Services Usage Survey
(2) CBDI Web Service Protocol Stack Figure 3
(3) Microsoft Web Service Case Studies
(4) IBM Web Service and SOA Case Studies
(5) CBDI – Applying Web Services
(6) CBDI - Moving to SOA
(7) CBDI Web Services Roadmap Planning | ABSTRACT: Recent surveys are giving some mixed messages about Web Services adoption. This week we argue that moving into Web Services now is an imperative, not simply for better interoperability, but as preparatory activity for SOA.
A recent survey reported that a large percentage of organization had not yet deployed Web Services and had no plans to do so. Another recent survey shows only a small minority have not deployed them or had no plans. In the first case, the immaturity of Web Service technology was believed to be a key reason holding back adoption. Yet in a third survey a reasonable percentage claimed they were already running what they described as business-critical Web Services. A year ago, our own survey of organizations that had completed some Web Service projects showed nearly 50% of the respondents citing the immaturity of standards and technology, as a barrier to wider adoption (1).
So what is really happening? Has nothing changed in the last year? Are Web Services technologies ready or not? It really depends of course on what you are trying to achieve. Web Services started off as a relatively straightforward concept to facilitate remote object access. Remember when the S in SOAP stood for Simple? W3C who administer the SOAP standard no longer expand the acronym any more, saying SOAP just means SOAP, reasoning that it isn’t really about Objects any more. We might add it isn’t really about being Simple either. And yet, the vast majority of the Web Services in production ARE simple. They may be business-critical, but that doesn’t stop them exposing relatively straightforward behaviour, via simple collaborations.
Even so, there is no denying that the Web Services protocol stack has become complex. As Web Services are emerging as the de facto way to build distributed, federated, collaborative systems, then it is no surprise that the requisite mechanisms for transactions, reliable messaging, orchestration, etc, that have long been at the core of existing technology are effectively being re-invented as open-standard protocols.
Inevitably this takes time. You only have to look at our own status chart (2) to see that the more advanced protocols are still mainly paper specifications. As a consequence, many will conclude that the incomplete state of the protocol stack means Web Services are not yet ready for prime time.
Yet this is missing a tremendous opportunity to deliver business benefits through simple services today and gain valuable experience in the process, as well as preparing for the broader perspective of SOA, and the inevitable implementation of more complex Web Services in future. Moreover, organizations should recognize that the technology for simple services is relatively mature today. Web Services have been around for some time and the basic SOAP and WSDL standards are in place, existing HTTPS security technology suffices for simple collaborations, whilst tools largely automate the delivery process. Perhaps more importantly, organizations should also recognize that SOA is not synonymous with Web Service technology. Sure Web Services are an important component, but SOA is equally about delivering service based separation and reuse, and can employ various protocols in addition to Web Services. Immaturity of Web Services should not prevent organizations from getting to grips with SOA today.
FIVE POINT PLAN
So, rather than just sitting in the trough of disillusionment, waiting for everything to mature, here are some things you should be doing right now
1. Work Experience. Deliver some simple services and learn by doing. Of course you need a business justification for doing so, but we believe there are already countless ones where today you could be applying Web Services but are not. If you need inspiration or reassurance then visit the Microsoft (3), IBM (4) or other vendor’s case study sites. There are examples of everyone from humble sandwich shops (yes) to global finance corporations implementing Web Services.
2. Apply Web Services in place of existing technologies, not because Web Services are a necessarily a better solution today, but because it is preparing you for a more agile future. The application of what we term “conversion scenarios” (5) may not be the end game for Web Services where the full benefits are gained, but it is where everyone is going to start.
3. Don’t let the Web Service tail wag the SOA dog. For example, initiate a Business Service Bus and other projects (6) to start putting the foundation and framework in place for SOA in each business domain. You don’t need to wait for emerging technology to identify the right business services and get the architecture correct.
4. Start Roadmap Planning (7). Survey respondents that reported they have no plans for use of Web Services probably said they had no plans for client/server when it was at a similar level of maturity. How fast did they have to run to catch up when the inevitable happened?
5. Attend Boot Camp. Similarly, you won’t have time to learn on the job whilst trying to deliver the critical projects when they suddenly arrive. So commence Web Service and SOA education now.
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