The Feature

Ketchup or Mustard? SOA and Enterprise 2.0

August 4, 2006 on 9:00 am | by Floyd Teter | In Worth Noting | Enter Comments |  Print |  Email

By now, we’ve all read and heard that Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) is the foundation for the next generation for Enterprise Applications. In fact, I’ve written in support of such a proposition myself. Lately, however, I’ve found myself reconsidering my viewpoint as I’ve run into the concept of Enterprise 2.0. Choosing between the SOA and Enterprise 2.0 approaches for Enterprise Applications is like choosing between mustard and ketchup for my burgers…the best burgers have a bit of both.

Dr. Andrew McAfee is an Associate Professor at the Harvard Business School. Amongst other things, he authors the faculty blog The Impact of Information Technology (IT) on Businesses and their Leaders. Dr. McAfee’s blogging includes quite a few articles on the concept of Enterprise 2.0.

According to Dr. McAfee, “Enterprise 2.0 is the use of emergent social software platforms within companies, or between companies and their partners or customers.” He continues to break down the concept with the following definitions:

Social Software enables people to rendezvous, connect or collaborate through computer-mediated communication and to form online communities. Platforms are digital environments in which contributions and interactions are globally visible and persistent over time. Emergent means that the software is freeform, and that it contains mechanisms to let the patterns and structure inherent in people’s interactions become visible over time.

Freeform means that the software is most or all of the following:

• OptionalFree of up-front workflow

• Egalitarian, or indifferent to formal organizational identities

• Accepting of many types of data

In contrast to Dr. McAfee’s definition of Enterprise 2.0, XML.com defines SOA as “…an architectural style whose goal is to achieve loose coupling among interacting software agents.” In other words, SOA is an approach for getting modules of code and/or different computers to interact with each other.

In light of these definitions, there are a couple of important conceptual differences between Enterprise 2.0 and SOA that may impact your perspective much as they did mine.

SOA is concerned with communication between computers, eliminating the need for intervention or interaction by people. Enterprise 2.0 is concerned with collaboration between people with the aid of technology.

SOA is an approach that must be imposed, preferably at the beginning of the architectural design process. Imposing a structure usually constrains the ability to apply “lessons learned”, as a set of goals, or business rules, or a vision must be defined so that the structure will support achieving the desired end-state. Enterprise 2.0 organically develops as time passes. The trick here is to have a means of identifying and communicating the patterns that emerge. Those patterns become the structure.

Both approaches have their appropriate uses. When the need arises for flexibilty, allowance for minor errors, developing inferences from data, or real-time adjustments outside of stated constraints, there is no substitute (yet) that matches the human mind. The Enterprise 2.0 approach shines in these situations. When the call is for enabling processes that must comply with specified rules or meet strict standards, especially while communicating between different technical platforms or software agents, the structured approach of SOA is clearly the better choice. SOA is an appropriate option when a high level of structure in the technical architecture is required. When the focus is on collaboration, especially iterative learning and collaboration, the Enterprise 2.0 approach fits well.

So, what does this mean for those of us swimming in the sea of change that constitutes today’s Enterprise Applications market? I think it means we need to carefully consider both approaches and how to successfully apply each as we move forward, whether we’ve moving forward with Oracle E-Business Release 12, Fusion Applications, or the next release of any other enterprise applications. For example, SOA may be the right solution for integrating our various business applications, but Enterprise 2.0 may be the more appropriate approach for collaborating on the integration project itself.

The bottom line here is that the successful implementations of the next generation Enterprise Applications will involve use of both the SOA and Enterprise 2.0 approaches.

You can learn more about Enterprise 2.0 here.