Event-Driven Architecture: How SOA Enables the Real-Time Enterprise

Chapter 1EDA: Opportunities and Obstacles

The Vortex

In the 1974 film classic Blazing Saddles, Mel Brooks, playing Governor William J. LePetomaine, struts around his office complaining, “Harrumph, Harrumph, Harrumph...” When one of his cohorts does not reply, he adds, “Hey! I didn’t get a harrumph outta that guy!!” To us, this scene epitomizes the current state of enterprise architecture. There’s a lot of complaining going on, and we have a big menu of issues that we can harrumph about if we choose to. For almost everyone in the architecture field, today represents an agonizing best-of-times/worst-of-times scenario. There is so much we want to do with our architecture, so much we need to do, and indeed, so much we can do—if we can ...