August 1, 2005

Does SOA Make Applications Obsolete?

SOA Creates Multiple Definitions For "Application"

by Randy Heffner

with Alex Cullen, Mike Gilpin, Phil Murphy, Lindsey Hogan

Executive Summary (This is a document excerpt)

Frequently, in service-oriented architecture (SOA) discussions, someone will say that because SOA so heavily blurs the lines between applications, the concept of an application goes away. But managing a plethora of individual SOA piece parts is too complex, so IT still needs some way to manage groups of SOA assets. Thus, a better way to think about it is that SOA changes the definition of "application." In fact, SOA creates multiple definitions of "application" as different combinations of interaction layer and business services layer modules. Composite applications bring the pieces together, leveraging business process definitions to increase the flexibility and agility of enterprise applications.

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