Before there was cloud computing, there was service oriented architecture (SOA). While cloud encompasses implementation and application delivery options, SOA is concerned with the foundation underneath that makes it all possible.
Fittingly, next week's 5th International SOA, Cloud and Service Technology Symposium, being held in London, will host a program that represents the natural evolution between the two disciplines -- and "service technology" is an apt term that describes both. Originally, the conference was called the International SOA Symposium. (Disclosure: I serve on the planning committee for the conference.)
The bottom line is without SOA, it's very difficult to get to cloud. An elevator-pitch definition of service oriented architecture would be: Loosely-coupled services with well-defined interfaces that provide business functionality and can be shared or reused across and beyond the enterprise. These services can be discovered through a registry/repository or other directory, and can be assembled and dis-assembled to meet current business process demands.
Deloitte, for one, recognizes the the necessary link between service-oriented and cloud-ready. In a report from earlier this year,the consultancy urges a "services thinking" approach to business problems. And when applying cloud solutions to the mix, the implications extend beyond simply replacing or upgrading or reconfiguring technology. It means a reconfiguring of the business itself. As John Seely Brown, independent co-chairman of Deloitte Center for the Edge, put it: "Beyond the IT stack there is a challenge on which many organizations haven’t yet focused: what does it mean to rethink my business as a collection of services?"
Services thinking means defining operating models, business processes and technology components as services – within and beyond the enterprise. Service technology conference organizer Thomas Erl, author and CEO of Arcitura EducationInc., has been tracking the growing convergence between SOA and cloud, especially as the former makes deeper inroads into business management thinking. "Companies who have gone ahead and adopted SOA, have gone through a number of project lifecycles, and are delivering services are using that experience and knowledge in cloud computing technology," he says.
Or, as Roberto Medrano, EVP, SOA Software, in the foreword to Erl's latest book, SOA Governance: Governing Shared Services On-Premise and in the Cloud, put it: "The cloud is inherently service-oriented... its applications are now reaching out to consume and expose Web services in ways that would have been hard to imagine even a few years ago. Even organizations that shunned SOA now have one. It's called the cloud."
