Where I Pretend To Work

Why SOA does not deliver

If it is supposed to make your business more agile, then you need to turn to SOA, no? I am disagree. Why? Because everyone is once again mixing up cause and effect! A flexible full use with or without SOA. SOA will not company or its people more agile.

Agility can only come from business and being willing to innovate and give their users eliminating business processes and the straitjacket as an impediment BPM, CRM and ECM. Encoding of your Java process rigid SOA is a business killer.

Why SOA incredible hype?

The SOA bandwagon is overloaded and then because everyone has stuck jumped on the sale of products and services. Not surprising that Network Computing Magazine today named the fashion SOA the most despised in November 2006. The "If you can not sell it, renaming Game 'played by the likes of IBM (with Tivoli and WebSphere), Oracle (with Fusion), BEA (with Aqualogic) and others. Something must change, and not only the names of products.

Do we even know what is wrong?

I seriously doubt it. The influential quantum physicist David Bohm wrote in 1980: "Fragmentation is so prevalent in our society that it interferes with our perception and prevents us from solving problems simplest. "Sounds familiar, right? We do everything in small boxes, Best Buy-breed software solutions for every business problem and now we are surprised not to work together.

The level of work processes we dissect some pieces of the process, because they seem more manageable that way. fragmentation process has been described by Thomas Davenport in 1993 as such: "A process is an order of specific work activities through time and space, with a beginning and an end, and clearly defined inputs and outputs: a structure for action. Adopting a process approach implies adopting the customer point of view. Processes are the structure by which an organization does what is necessary to generate value for its customers. "

I can go with that implemented, but it was more accurately described by Foote and Yoder in 1999, who wrote: "A Big Ball System sludge is a chance structured, sprawling, sloppy, duct-tape-and-bullets-wire, spaghetti code jungle. These systems have obvious signs of growth not regulated, and repeated, the appropriate remedy. Information is shared indiscriminately among distant elements of the system, often to the point where almost all the important information becomes global or duplicated. "This perfectly describes the most SOA Java application servers. Why? Because own object-oriented encapsulation is destroyed by irrational requirement to use XML messages. XML conflicts with SOA, because that metadata should be managed in a repository and not within the data file.

I suggest that David Bohm is right and that fragmentation is necessary for our ability to think, organize and plan. However, the world around us is not built in fragments process and therefore the current SOA approach will not solve the fragmentation, but rather create a nightmare for software engineering to a higher level. Processes business and management processes of change must first be addressed before the systems can be defragmented.

Business Process 1911 Style

There are those who say that SOA is an extension of the management process. But developers are stuck BPM in 1911's-Taylorism and SOA makes it worse because there is still fragmented change management. Frederick Taylor believed in fragmentation and specialization and proposed rigidly structured society. Thus, each computer application represents such a fragment of business processes, because otherwise according to Davenport, we do not need. But what is a business process? Rummler and Brache (1990) proposed that "a business process is a series measures to produce a product or service to a customer. "And it is simply incorrect.

Yes, there are processes rigid and some ad-hoc approaches giving more room for the user to choose the course of the process. Curiously, hardly anyone seems to realize that the need for an agile enterprise is created by the dynamics inherent in the communication process related companies. It is obvious that the condition of content of communication controls the process and not its meaningless. Corporate Communications is not only a document or an email, but can be anything: a menu selection, a web page, a sticker on the document, a recording of data, images, or even a voice recording or video. No matter how long and money is devoted to analysis of business processes, there will always be another element of communication necessary for a process business once it is underway. Therefore, collaboration tools and messaging are now so widespread. They do not require analysis of communicating.

In "Reengineering the Corporation Hammer and Champy made a very important suggestion:" not the task or process is important, but only the result. "BPM systems and BPR projects miss the ability to adjust to the dynamics of goal orientation.

Damelio wrote in "Fundamentals of Process Mapping: maps and diagrams to make the work visible … they represent a snapshot in time … "And that's all business process is supposed to be, as Bohm said. We need to understand the fragmentation, but life does not that way.

How it is appropriate to treat?

In "Is it important? Nicolas G. Carr writes that "… in years 1990 many strategic investments went to waste … and business leaders grew skeptical … "And says it is now a commodity and no longer produce a competitive advantage. I agree, but the problem is not computers, but business users IT demand!

Users want to organize their work in their own indescribable way, while management wants to strictly control the process user. It has absolutely no idea how to go about both, because the underlying technology (mainly because of Windows, Java and XML) has become almost unmanageable. SOA only adds to the already incredible complexity.

Business users are human beings and Point to something to say: What I like and what I do. Once users see a front-end GUI cute they think of the Interior must be nice too. Users buy a GUI, not architecture, flexibility or long-term management.

They require, however availability of 99.99% (which is good for the underlying mainframe system bank transaction), but when the average availability of a physical and mental employee is at most 50%, then the expectation of availability due to the complexity of current technology creates long deployment cycles. Users expect IT to be inhumane, and that's exactly what they get. And because they cannot get what they want Business fights for control of IT outsourcing and governance. Bad idea!

Adherence to the rules of governance ineffective is usually more important than what the constituents need, in case you have not noticed. On his blog Joe McKendrick ZD-Net application Transform SOA in your HOA (human oriented architecture) "and said:" Without governance, there is no SOA. But perhaps we do not want too much governance. "I would like to add: Maybe we do not want SOA at all if it requires even more rigidity to control and manage our business processes?

Process of business decision-making:

Let's face it: The AGILE-SOA-XML-jBPEL company can not see beyond Taylorist graphics process 2-D! The latest buzzword of "IT-industrialization" described our plan to create Henry Ford's conveyor-IT-processes for business users lobotomized.

But it gets worse. In 2005, Davenport and Harris also said in an article in MIT Sloan, "Rather than forcing people to identify problems or to initiate the analysis, companies typically incorporate decision-making capabilities of the normal flow of work. These systems then sense online data, apply codified knowledge or logic, and make decisions all the minimum amounts of human intervention. "

In "Super Crunchers: why thinking by numbers is the new way to be Smart by Ian Ayres has also argued large data sets previously impossible to predict and that statistical methods are more accurate than the more intuitive findings by experts.

From my point of view, Business Intelligence produces a jumble of incomprehensible data that has little or no sense for business decisions, automated or not. Imagine that we not only make the process more rigid, but also the codified knowledge of decision making? This will ruin every company because the "facts of statistical data" are illusory and at best average values of the past that are not applicable to the current point decision. The interviews face-to-face with the managers concerned, employees and customers will give you a feeling for the emotional intuitive right decision that the statistics will not.

You may ask: Emotions?

I was asked to replace "emotion" by "instinct" because emotions are seen so negatively. I refuse! Instinct is more in reflexes that do not suggest at all. Perhaps that feelings would be better, but the feelings also require deeper emotions in our human nature. I can go to intuition, because intuition is an affective function.

Assuming today is unfortunately the emotion or intuition is the opposite reason. Maybe not. Why can not the United Kingdom and the United States on anti-depression drug Prozac in rivers be detected? Because people are constantly forced to be reasonable and not emotional. Look inside yourself and you will feel it is against human nature and it makes us sick.

Man-making is most likely an emotional capacity weighted filtering of the brain. Rationality is only used for post-decision justification or verification. Managers are not robust and contractors for most very emotional, even unreasonable people? Absolutely! Pioneers such as Broca (1878), Papez (1937) and MacLean (1952) suggests that emotion is linked to a set of structures in the center of the brain called the limbic system, which includes the hypothalamus, cingulate cortex and seahorses among others. Antonio Damasio – now professor of neuroscience at the University of Southern California – has long been research on the neural systems of memory, language, emotion and decision making. In 1994 his book, "Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason and the human brain, he documents his discovery that "human beings to dysfunctions of emotional centers face serious difficulties in decision making. "Thus, decisions Rights – intuitive or not – are emotionally balanced and how you want to encode, Mr. process-analysis-consultant?

Improving decision making with the help of computers we need to invent the technology for intuitive model of human decision making beyond logical rules. As Ian Ayres mentions neural networks and filtering it fails to understand that the two do not need data statistics, but the decision points related to real data. It does not matter how many people have taken a certain decision, but this model data was used by each person to come to the decision. Therefore, we do not need to crunch data and inaccurate meaning with unproven mathematical assumptions, but the computing power of today must be used interactively learn decisions of man.

And what about "agility"?

I'm serious: Agility is a property of man and not the functionality of the system. What stops current organizations to be agile? The Big Ball Java / XML for mud? Taylorist BPM? Windows DLL hell? I say it's the lack of agility in people and their low resistance to the true spirit innovation.

A flexible run it in a real agile CIO supported by a board creates an agile platform application that puts a great power the hands of skilled business user who is willing to be agile itself.

In their reports, SOA white people like IBM, BEA, TIBCO and Oracle name for the infinite complexities of SOA techniques to create when there is not enough manpower available IT on this planet to not even 2% of SOA projects such (Source: Max Pucher, 2007, informed guess of 35 years IT). Remember, once the hole is so deep that you can not get out, digging deeper will not improve your situation.

KISS – Keep it simple, stupid!

Simplification is necessary and it is I who first has humbly offered in 2000/2001 the consolidation of inbound and outbound documents in Closed-Loop CRM processes with Papyrus WebRepository – Eye empty of any analyst I spoke to big names! Today, you see incoming / outgoing white paper every vendor ECM. Thank you all, because the copy is the sincerest form of flattery. Today, I already proposed the consolidation of the ECM, BPM, CRM … and so you better stop dig!

Do we need governance?

I agree that we need some oversight to make the user happy. We can call it governance, if you prefer, but it is simply the demands of management between users and IT. If you already deeply fragmented IT landscape with too many clients and external consultants may be able to make governance must remain afloat.

SOA change management?

The central question of IT is change management. Change Management is metadata: data structured data that "describes, explains, locates, or otherwise makes it easier to retrieve, use or manage an information resource."

Yes, but we are doing this with XML, I am told. Listen, WSDL metadata for SOAP and UDDI WSDL metadata is not yet sufficient because neither links the user interface and process. You need a DTD, XSLs, XSLT, XPath, BPEL and BPML and much Java code to verify that the data are valid and use it in decision blocks hardcoded.

In "SOA For Dummies" BEA-friendly authors therefore recommend a repository for Java programs and a registry for SOA services linked dynamically. Their argument for two management products is understandable in light of BEA Tuxedo old, Weblogic and Java programming world workflow acquired Aqualogic.

However, a modification of metadata in a service interface is not automatically propagated to all user interfaces, all Java modules, all process definitions, all XML transformations and all databases. There is no way that the user himself can make any changes quickly and easily. Since there is no common version and no joint deployment we are where we were before – in a "Big Ball of Mud" – a bit more complex.

Standards – Where are you?

Other believe that standards are the solution. There are many definitions of SOA various organizations such as the Open Group, OASIS, OMG and others. Most definitions are missing still several fundamental issues, such as transactions, security and event management. Consequently, there is still no way standard offer SOA.

Several vendors offer SOA Change Management with tools such as HP-Mercury, IBM Tivoli, etc.. These are huge investments to address the SOA infrastructure and networking, but not with the company before the end of service required by the user.

As you can see the confusion. I see where compliance DP SOA is requested at the same time as "feature-rich API. DP application of XML standards and Java, when there is no such thing. It's a simple answer "YES" in the RFP. Number of people who seem to think that SOA in some way solve the non-standard situation of Java and XML, when at best it hides some of the problems.

Where are we going with SOA?

I think in a few years we have forgotten. The buzzword is already big news "Event-Driven Architecture.

Why am I not surprised? When I designed WebRepository in 1996, it was built around state / application models driven by events. BPM / SOA vendors argue that you can simply log "events in the workflow graphic 2-D of a BPEL process using the Java code (Oracle JDeveloper).

From my point of view, to use the agility of the word "for SOA requires Java programmers to create a simple process event-driven is false.

Consultants and analysts:

Why do I feel permanently needle against consultants, analysts and outsourcers? In fact, I do. But like everyone else, not all the ideas that the consultants are good.

The SOA (SOA) was first described by Gartner in 1996 in a research paper SSA. Gartner, like most research companies have a closet full of skeletons (not predictions) and I'm not holding that against them. SOA is not a bad idea and is not the EDA, but what the industry which is done is what I am speaking against. I ask you not to let the vision prevailing cloud your ability to judge for yourself. I ask you not to be afraid to stand up and say what you – as someone who is there at the base of the computer – have to say about it. I ask the users and Affairs Department not to interfere with what he wants to offer as long as it focuses on the processes of the user. In fact, I demand users and be more agile!

Vision of the Anointed:

What is it that stops most large organizations forward thinking strategic change and innovation – as requested by Barbara Gomolski above – also within the government or business? Why, otherwise excellent professionals so afraid to do something new?

I found an explanation: In "The Vision of the Anointed "Thomas Sowell wrote in 1996 on political views in a manner that is fully applicable to other areas, including business and IT visions: "differing visions, of course, are based on different assumptions … For a vision that prevails, however, which means that its assumptions are taken for granted by the so-called thinking between the people, these assumptions are never challenged to requests for empirical evidence … A prevailing view offers more than any state-of-Thanks for those who believe in it. "

The subtitle of the book is worthy Sowell: "Complacency as a basis for social policy of the politicians. "Only the stock analysts and excel in the art of self-congratulation.

Someone opposed to a dominant view is fought with all possible means by saying that "ulterior motives must be disclosed. Like the dicussion on climate change …

References and innovation:

IT people in large organizations more than others averse to innovation. I am always asked for the reference plants (and nobody wants to be one) which is impossible for software development. Hey, it's NEW, nobody else has done before! In addition there are no two clients are exactly the same thing with our software or have the same infrastructure. As always, a reference should be about the integrity of the individuals concerned and not on technology.

You can of course choose the safest way and decide not to innovate and make your choice from a Gartner Magic Quadrant. Gartner Group, however a business analyst for market and thus, their information is from the past. You will find no innovation there.

SOA is not an innovation, but an evolution of object-oriented messaging that took a wrong turn because vendors need to sell what they had – they just had renamed. My position in this document in the difference translated into ISIS Papyrus products over the last twenty years, and therefore some of it has been and is again very innovative.

I propose to enter a programming effort yourself or buying a huge rigid part of the "standard" software (with rigid process) has a much greater risk of giving something new to try. This tool strongest competition is – if they are applied and used by people agile.

You can not drive in footsteps someone else. If you do not innovate, IT is not your first board whatever buzzword compliant you. IT Benchmarking against others who do not innovate to get everyone to the same low level. But then … you can show that you are among the best in your reference!

Innovation – doing something new – always risky. Be brave!

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About the Author

Max J. Pucher is the founder and current Chief Architect of ISIS Papyrus Software, a globally operating software company that specializes in Artificial Intelligence for Business Process and Communication. He has written several books, frequently speaks and writes on IT and holds several patents.

Barry Cupples – OMG