Service Oriented Architecture Field Guide for Executives

Appendix A. STANDARDS IN SOA

The attempt to standardize nearly all aspects of communication between two software applications is a major contribution of service oriented architecture (SOA). Such attempts are not new. In computer science, the discipline that deals with intersoftware communication is known as distributed computing. The history of distributed computing dates back to the 1970s. Notably, two standardization efforts—DCE/RPC and CORBA—stand out from the crowd. They provided a reliable way to send data from one application to another. The applications did not have to be developed using the same programming language or have to be running on the same operating system. This principle, that any software should be able to exchange data with any other software, irrespective of their architecture, programming language, or operating system, is known as interoperability (Exhibit A.1). Interoperability is a key goal of distributed computing.

DCE/RPC and CORBA were comprehensive, and allowed one to develop enterprise-scale solutions. They were also supremely complex. Their complexity prevented vendors from properly following them in their products. These standards were created and maintained by a consortium of vendors. Differences in view and a general lack of cooperation among the vendors slowed down any intelligent growth and adaptation of these standards (a condition that is disparagingly known as "design by committee"). In the end, despite all the sophistication, the market ...