Can You Pass the Lexicon Please?

I am not qualified to speak about SOA nor does one person come to mind that can articulate it effectively to the masses either. There are other things that I can delve into that will overlap with common elements of this buzz word. Now I have to be careful here (like the first sentence really was) not to tread on too many toes.

Who is the target audience of SOA, at least in its current state? My belief is that enterprises are going to be interested in this because of the many promises embodied in those three little letters. The excitement is palatable as are the hunger pains from a lack of substance. Everyone loves a high class buffet because they can grab what satiates their needs and desires while leaving the rest to the other hungry people in the room. No two palates are identical nor are two enterprises.

When I look at this problem space I try and employ terms and views that many people can agree on regardless of their bias or industry. The biggest thing to take away from this is a capability based conversation. If one is ambitious enough they could unravel and decompose all the different viewpoints around SOA and they’d probably run down to base capabilities that are consistent. If it’s that easy then why the hell don’t people just do it?

Individuals rarely do things in plain sight much less a group with a common purpose. My intention with this blog is to practice in the open as much as practical despite my many reservations and training to do quite the opposite.

Back to the topic at hand: capabilities. Capabilities naturally arrange themselves into hierarchical structures that are organic in nature allowing growth, interaction, and synthesis into the communities they couple with. Embracing this view will allow disparate perspectives to align as they can all agree on the capability regardless of the impact per vested party member. Still sound too ethereal?  

Some times the best way to present a new concept is to provide examples that are relevant. To elucidate the above let’s start and decompose identity management for a moment.

Identity Management

            Extensible Integration of Identity Repositories

                        Synchronization

            Life Cycle Management

                        Approval Workflow

                                    Simple

                                    One-Step

                                    Multi-Step

                                    Complex

            Password Management

                        Self Service

                        Helpdesk

                        Change & Reset

It is extremely easy to talk to someone about this without even mentioning how to implement it (this means platform, technology, et. al.). Most sane people can agree that password management is a capability of identity management. They will probably even be able to agree that change & reset is a capability of password management. Next thing you know your CxO, architect, developer and 13 year old computer gamer across the street all not only agreed on something but they internalized it by using a common taxonomy and viewpoint.

Enough for tonight it's 0027 and I'm tired. Just to set expectations, this will be an evolving topic that will probably take a month to loosely cover so don't expect a conclusion any time soon!