Soa Systems Management

SystemsManagement facilities for ServiceOrientedArchitecture are only beginning to be revealed in standards, and the big name vendors are all working on it.

Lack of mature solutions for this aspect of SOA has been named as one of the three main SOA hurdles. The other two are non technical concerns.

At a 2004 SunOne roundtable forum on ServiceOrientedArchitecture, this observation was made:

"It's much worse than with client/server or mainframe applications. I've got several tools that tell me when I have problems. They send e-mail, pager messages, even voice mail. I end up with 27 messages each telling me 27 objects have failed, but not what caused the problem, which instance of which service or which server failed to begin with, let alone how to fix it. Nobody but the original developers can understand the application."

WS-Management is the "official standard" where MicroSoft and SunCorporation has participated together. But the standardization is missing the BigBlue, who have normally worked together with Microsoft through the works of WebServicesInteroperabilityOrganization.

MicroSoft and friends has this WMX technology being implemented, whereas IbmCorporation has partners in the competing WSDM being considered by the OasisOrganization. See the reference article later for more informatin.

BusinessValueFirst

Why should we care? Well without adequate SystemsManagement products that can work across vendor environments, Then ServiceOrientedArchitecture built on SoapProtocol WebServices cannot achieve "On demand computing" benefits sold to endusers, people who paid for and expect "vendor neutral" solutions. If you happen to be in a medium to larger organization with BigIron, MicroSoft and UnixPlatform? servers you need lots of consultancy and faith to stitch together an interim solution. And by the time one stable custom solution emerges in your shop the standards change, products change and your CIO has to explain to Business sponsors on why the TotalCostOfOwnership calculations have to be rebooted.

So at a technical level, SOA is not yet ready to replace what is out there. The job of the SoftwareArchitect in this respect is to help determine what subsets of tools to adopt, and advice Business Management of the many risks, including vendor lock-in, that a specific technology solution (e.g. SupplyChainManagement) will bring to the organization.

Terms and related standards

In the case of InformationSecurity the biggest one is probably WS-Federation, a key standard in the area of IdentityManagement.

WorkInProgress terms, etc:

WS-Eventing, WS-Reliability, ServiceLevelAgreement, WS-Policy, etc, etc

References

Gartner views in Oct05 article titled " WS-Management's Success Depends on Wide, Deep Vendor Support" at http://www.gartner.com/DisplayDocument?doc_cd=124376

Whilst collaboration is most welcome from all interested parties, I think I do not want to have HostileTeacher, HostileStudent, nor GangstaGeeks running about. I do not have Soa Implementation experience and I am not a geek. But I have lots of ApplicationDevelopment experience in various capacities.

I will try to get outside parties to participate in this page, and I do not want lots of quarrelling here if and when people do come.

My aim for this page is learning and sharing, in technology, its application and in WikiCollaboration?. I have put away a lot of my notes in the hope that there are better ones about.

Thanks from DavidLiu, a facilitator and hoping to have my name removed later on.

CategorySoa