By Dave Chappell

Myth #1. ESB is just a new name for EAI.
While many IT architecture groups are focusing on building SOAs, they still inevitably beg the question of "how is ESB different from EAI?" An ESB is an infrastructure for building an enterprise SOA, and is capable of being used in a more general way than a conventional EAI broker. According to Forrester Research, an ESB helps enterprises obtain the value of SOA by increasing connectivity, adding flexibility that speeds change, and providing greater control over use of the important resources that it binds.

Web-oriented architectures are easier to implement and offer a similar flexibility to SOA.

By Roger Smith

CIOs and system architects find themselves stymied as they try to sledgehammer complex SOAs into their enterprises. Top-down, "if you build it, they will come" approaches to service-oriented architecture often wind up failing--sometimes spectacularly. Instead of better aligning business processes and IT departments, as was promised, too many employees remain oblivious to expensive SOA initiatives. And those optimistic ROI projections? Forget 'em.

SOA Repository Best Practice
By: John Moe, Head of Business Integration, TORI Global
Tuesday, December 8, 2009

For those of us who have been developing applications for many years (think COBOL & Assembler from the 70s and 80s), the idea of having a code library (programs and routines) is nothing new. However for the Web Services generation, this concept has taken a while to re-emerge, but has now been packaged in the form of a services registry and/or repository.

Management Strategies for SOA
By: Mike Kavis, CTO/Chief Architect, M-Dot
Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Management Strategies for SOA

The SOA consortium has been running an annual contest for the best SOA Case Studies. Last year I attended the event and summarized the common characteristics of successful SOA implementations. This year's winners shared the same characteristics:

1. Strong executive level commitment
2. Educate the business of the value of SOA
3. Establish a Center of Excellence
4. Well defined business services
5. Completeness of services

Hi Guys,

Here is a free eBook, "SOA for Dummies". Free for Download

Thought it will be useful. Have a look.

https://www14.software.ibm.com/webapp/iwm/web/signup.do?source=swg-soafd...

SOA is exciting dont you think?

What's the distinction between SOA and web services? Are web services simply one direction that SOA can take?

Again, the web site analogy applies here. For instance, you might ask, "Well, what's the distinction between HTTP and Amazon?" Web services are simply the protocol layer, important because they're a key element of interoperability, but they are only a path to the value a service offers.

SOA establishes an architectural model that aims to enhance the efficiency, agility, and productivity of an enterprise by positioning services as the primary means through which solution logic is represented in support of the realization of the strategic goals associated with service-oriented computing.

Contract-first design and development is not something new. It was formally introduced by Bertrand Meyer as a part of his Eiffel Programming Language design and has appeared in various technical publications since 19861,2. Therefore, understanding contracts from an old-school tool/technology perspective might be helpful to grasp why it it's useful.

Hi Guys,

If you are interested in SOA. I am sure you are, you cannot ignore SOA and stay in the IT game. Service Oriented Architecture is taking over everything and sure to evolve and mature further.

If you would like some Resources to explore SOA, here is a list of eBooks (PDFs and Docs) for free download.

http://soaconcepts.com/?q=node/18

Enjoy and get smarter.

The goal of the SOA approach is to deliver a business solution that enables business agility, not to build a SOA. Reuse of services is often stated as a goal of SOA, and while it is true that reuse can be a good by-product of SOA, it is not the end goal itself. The first step in any SOA implementation, therefore, is to identify key business integration challenges or priorities. Development efforts, implemented along principles of SOA, are chosen such that they: 1) best meet the stated business needs, 2) offer the fastest time to value, and 3) best support long-term growth of the business.