Dana Gardner produced a nicely done post about the relationship between SOA and open source. I'll start out by stating that from my perspective, SOA has a lot more to do with principles, approaches and well, architecture, than it does pure technology. Obviously products, tools, platforms and the like are the means by which to realize the benefits of SOA but they remain only a piece of the puzzle. That being said, the SOA product landscape, while not in total flux, is indeed in transition. Marked by acquisitions, new entrants and offerings it's a challenge to keep track of the market's players, let alone effectively determine its leaders.
In order to develop an understanding of where and how open source software fits into the picture, it's important to grasp the opportunities for disruption technologies within the context of SOA. At the current moment, we're seeing a prime example of how this plays out with the intersection of Web 2.0 and SOA. In this case, Web 2.0-esque RIA's have emerged as an effective front-end technology for numerous pieces of SOA componentry. Originally thought of as an enabler of end-user focused, social networking type web apps, Web 2.0 technology is proving capable of filling in gaps within the SOA panorama. In a similar manner, open source is poised to do the same by presenting its own value proposition as a match to the varied needs of SOA.
While open source software doesn't qualify as a specific type of technology, per se, its open and flexible characteristics make it a natural fit for key SOA tenets of agility, interoperability and reusability. Fittingly, open standards also play a critical role as enabler of the loosely coupled, pluggable components which categorize these architectures. Moreover, as it becomes crucial for IT infrastructure to scale as a manageable and responsive business driver, open source will continue to serve as a tool chest of sorts for developers, architects and even business analysts. This is the case already as open source has produced quality software artifacts in the form of ESB's, portals, web service infrastructure and standard-driven data integration products. To the companies and organizations facing the formidable task of implementing SOA as the basis for solutions to an increasing array of business problems, the prospect of integrating products which can be absorbed with a lower cost of/less barriers to ownership is quite attractive.
Additionally, the open source movement as a whole is proving adept at being able to adapt to and evolve with the changing needs of industry's understanding of SOA. Individual pockets, communities and projects within the space are feeding the development of what should mature into the suites and platforms of the future. Those which can realistically take aim at serving as fully equipped portfolio's of frameworks and other components. By tracking the path of the JBoss Enterprise Middleware Suite, the organic model of 'co-intesition', the process of leveraging the cooperation, direct integration and/or acquisition of other open source software, comes to the light. Using this, Red Hat can now call itself now a provider of an enterprise quality SOA platform which can run atop a proven enterprise quality Linux distro. On a related note, the Apache Foundation is attempting to draw upon the strength of their community ecosystem by incubating a fully open source SOA underpinning. The effort consists of the combination of several sponsored projects (Tuscany SXC, ServiceMix, Synapse, jUDDI, and others), sans all the corporate razzle-dazzle...just good, Apache quality code that does what it supposed to.
Even if Apache's incubated approach is suited for those interested in optimizing results through choice between a flexible set of technologies whereas Red Hat has its eyes on the segment wants a platform to be nearly assembled out of the box, it is the open source model that enables both to stand where they do today. Likewise, the community-driven composition of open source will ensure that both never suffer from the 'product-ware' affliction which can plague proprietary software. Product-ware can be defined as offerings which are built to sell and not so much to scale, i.e. products which are built to do everything that buyers will look for with less regard to how complex dynamics of product use. Open source takes the opposite path, it's software is constructed, maintained and refined first and foremost to work to the current requirements of its use cases with very little regard (in the early stages) to creating a marketable asset (a stark advantage within SOA pilot environments where results count for more than literature).
Going forward, the open, communicative nature of the product communities for open source software will increasingly become a key selling point for its inclusion within SOA efforts. As more design and architecture patterns establish themselves as best practices, open source will exhibit a resiliency that will be passed through to companies who integrate them. When certain standards and categories of technology come in vogue and perhaps even fall out of style, open source will continue to just plain work, fitting in alongside proprietary as well as other open source software. And by promoting better breeds of software ownership, it has the opportunity to ingratiate itself within SOA which can entail a bouillabaisse of technologies, a situation that doesn't bode well with vendor lock-in and high costs of acquisition.
Excellent points. Thanks for expanding on my post in very thoughtful and forward-looking ways. Just one catch, my name is Gardner, not Gartner. I am, of course, in no way insulted. Thanks.
Posted by: Dana Gardner | May 19, 2007 at 07:38 AM
Sorry about the typo Dana, I just fixed it...Thanks for pointing it out.
Alex
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