Anyway – I’m very glad it was a two way pleasure:)

Besides, you have a point – there were quite a lot of management lessons to be learned, but SOA somehow went into background at those times.

Although, since i prefer management to SOA, I liked those moments too. And I hope next semesters course in project management by Giedrius will rock

In short – no offence intended – no offence had

New ideas are great, but they are great for new things, for the pioneers. Being a pioneer in business is very expensive and even then, if you are not IBM – you have to be bold. And as they say – there are old pilots, and bold pilots, but there are no old bold pilots. Same goes here – business CAN take risk in basically two ocasions: a) they are starting from ground up (a.k.a. google), their everyday life is associated with providing something new (a.k.a. MS, IBM). But they tend to minimize it on the way to “global domination” (as some lab-rats from a cartoon used to say), e.g. MS uses monopoly bullying, IBM finances whole bunch of new things, so some work and they go hurray!

So clarifying my point – there are not very many business applications, where i would be willing to accept additional risks connected with communication as opposed to standalone local application, which can always be restarted and managed directly.

Small business SHOULD use WS like data backuping, but tell me why should i do that, if i’m a 500+ company, going multinational AND i CAN have a ready to use storage WITHOUT any risk of a force majeure associated with comunications? The argument “it is the same risk in both cases” is a bad one, becouse the WS like approach to something like data backuping IS less secure than local copy it the main vault of the local bank.

Talking about business applications – if any specially crafted software is outdated in 5 years – imho it was crafted badly. I’ve seen several cases where application is used far more than 5 years (more like 10+) and its core functionality is unchanged (improved – yes, but never made an U turn).

I liked the idea about real time data aquisition. Its a mega advantage of WS. But analyzing that data? Using it? No internet connection will be faster than corporate intranet (if its not a wishfull thinking )

Another idea, which I overlooked (silly me) is ready-to-use components. Although – correct me if im wrong, but the same goes for SAP? Then again – you cant mash-up SAP. But then again – why would you want to mash-up SAP?

I am not questioning the benefits of SOA concepts, i am questioning SOA usability in specialized situations in variuos parts of industry, where specialized applications thrive (e.g. CAD, manufacturing control). Why would you use WS for manufacturing cars? Becouse you can mash-it-up with … err… maps?:)

After that lecture I was ready mash the net all over, but suddenly I‘ve got problem like yours: „what if one or several things, that I use, on the net will fail?“. But you‘ve got to ask your self a question: „when was the last time you saw the youtube isn‘t working? Google.maps isn‘t working?“ and a lot of other free services you can get on the net… You‘ve got to take in consideration that it‘s free, but when you get a account that you are paying for – you get to another level with these companies (you will never see “easy-going-girls” ). They don’t fail when you are using them for free, so you think they will fail when you are paying to them? I think you already got the answer.

So no internet connection – no maps, but the WS is not about getting a map to you (in some cases maybe) – it’s about that you can get (remember the example that Jonathan Briggs showed) points on the map, it’s about real time automated system, that helps you to get latest information. If you have an internet provider that doesn’t satisfy your needs – get a better one!

“How do you guarantee, that it will work after 5 years?” – Who guaranties that company providing MapPoint after 5 years will exist? Google was founded in 2000-2001, so like six years. Can you imagine your world without Google today? No one knows what is going to happen in 5 years, I don‘t think you or someone else knows what is going to be even after 2 years. You just choose the best you can get now. E.g. you need to develop system. You can fins tools on the net or you can get them as apps to you computer (system). The thing is that on-line services are cheaper (usually a lot). So let’s say that the price in five years for Web Service is equal to apps cost today. If you by app you are limited for five years to use it, and as you know in five years anything can happen. At this point you make flexible decision, witch in some business cases may be crucial.
Moreover on reliability you can make mixed system: on-line + standalone app, but you don’t want to know the effort and cost of it, neither the client does.

And at the end – the beginning. Jelena has got a new idea! No one got that idea and she becomes the first of this kind Mash-up’s provider. Today she’s talking to managers explaining her idea of great business possibilities and you still developing one Web Service (or something) that will “never” (can you give 100% ?) crash…
I agree that this idea is not the best business plan I’ve saw, but it’s a start and can serve as an example for everybody – how you can create something new with minimum effort.

2. You get what you pay for. If you still hope to get something that would serve your business-, time-, and mission-critical goals and wouldn’t cost a penny, think again. In traditional computing, there’s open source and freeware, too, but you wouldn’t choose them to be used at nuclear power plants, would you? Likewise, in SOA, if you pay for a service, its reliability, unchangeability is defined contractually and legally. If you use something free, all you can do is hope for the best.

3. The world is changing too quickly. If all you need is to display a video on your website, fine – use youtube and it works today. If your website is relevant, has a number of visits, you will be motivated to keep it going. If something changes in the video displaying scheme, you will be motivated, to incorporate these changes and keep everything working. If not, the community will be motivated. And if neither of you are, this usually means that your website is just an old deserted archive which has outdated info and is of little use.

4. SOA allows using hosted environments that you would never ever be able to host yourself using traditional applications. That is, can you imagine the vast amount of data that is stored on flickr, youtube or google maps? And it takes only a few WS calls to incorporate this functionality into your software or website. What would it take to deploy all this as a client application? Why duplicate the functionality that already exists somewhere in the world? Reuse it, share it, let’s leave a few centralized, well maintained sources of important information that are cared after by those who can do it. That’s what it’s all about.

5. Yes, in SOA world, connectivity becomes much more important, communication channels need to be up and running and if you’re not connected, there’s hardly anything you can do. But it’s a question of implementation (backups/redundant links/etc.) and not of conceptual architecture.

6. And lastly, there’s a tool for every job. And you are not obliged to use google maps to control your space shuttle launch station. In every situation, use what works best – even code in assembly language if unmatched performance and efficiency is what you’re after. The power lies in knowing what’s available to you and being able to choose what’s best in a certain case. I believe that the big fans of traditional architecture and haters of SOA have a lot of prejudice against it and refuse to try it out or at least open their eyes and see what the world has to offer. Being stuck in your ignorance is a bad, bad thing.. And don’t forget to assess all aspects of your choices – money, speed, quickness of implementation, maintainability, functionality and reliability, etc. The decision might sometimes be unexpected.

That’s it for my insights on the lack of reliability in mashups. Stay positive