Wednesday, June 01, 2005

200 SERVICES! That's great - but how many clients? Here's another Jeff Schneider with another great post about service reuse. Here's a highlight: Service Architects love to brag about the number of services - and I let them. Actually, I encourage them to brag. However, I'm quick to challenge these same people with a very simple question: "200 SERVICES! That's great - but how many clients???" This simple question usually makes the most pompous architect fall to their knees in shame. Of course, this then begs the age old question of how to design services that are highly reusable, which leads to discussions of REST ("The central feature that distinguishes the REST architectural style from other network-based styles is its emphasis on a uniform interface between components") and spanning layers, and the really important architectural issues of SOA. 3:36:48 AM

WS-PaintJob vs. Service Network Architecture. Jeff Schneider at Momentum has a great post about reuse, REACH, and Web services. I'll just give you the punch line: WS-PaintJobs are an easy way to black box systems and increase reach. However, the total number of protocol permutations between any given client and any given service grows exponentially with the size of the service network. This leads to the realization that a protocol mediation strategy is not only useful but mandatory. I just love it when I see people highlighting the need for SOAP intermediaries. Web services is a application NETWORK architecture (or if you like, a Service Network Architecture), not an application POINT-TO-POINT architecture. One other thing I'll point out while I'm on my SOAPbox, SOA is NOT about application integration. Wha? SOA is about designing application protocols that are composable. More on this later. 2:48:37 AM