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SOA: Is this the path to simplifying a complex technology?
To fight the criticism of SOA complexity, the IT industry standards body OASIS has responded in a strange way: they’ve created six new technical committees (TCs) to go off and hammer out more specifications. The world of SOA is already floating in a sea of complex specifications. There are even web sites dedicated to trying to map the relationships between the many specs. OASIS defends their approach by noting that splitting up into the smaller highly-specialialized committees will enable quick progress on the individual topics because they are being addressed by small groups comprised of topic experts.
The new groups created by OASIS include:
- SCA-Assembly, to define a core composition model.
- SCA-Policy, to define a policy framework for SCA and specific reliable messaging, security, and transaction policies.
- SCA-Bindings, to standardize bindings for SCA services and references to communications protocols.
- SCA-BPEL, specifying how SCA component implementations can be written using Web Services Business Process Execution Language.
- SCA-C-C++, to develop specifications that standardize the use of C and C++ technologies.
- SCA-J, developing specifications that standardize use of Java technologies.
Members of the OASIS initiative include BEA, Oracle, Progress Software, Hitachi, IBM, SAP, and Sun Microsystems.
Standards can be good things, but the danger is that complex standards can inhibit adoption. Rather than the approach that OASIS is taking, it might be better to create a single initiative that tries to unify and simplify something that is already very complex.
