Chapter 31
Ten SOA No-Nos
In This Chapter
Choosing the right starting point
Standing on the shoulders of (SOA) giants
Watching your back
Being part of a SOA team
With hundreds of pages in this book to show you what you can do with a SOA, we thought we’d use this chapter to carve out a few caveats to warn you what not to do so you can benefit from the mistakes of others.
Don’t Boil the Ocean
Make sure the SOA project you choose for your starting point is well defined and well confined. Initially, prove SOA successful with something that is small, is achievable in a short time, and will have a significant impact — then build incrementally from there.
Don’t Confuse SOA with an IT Initiative
If you relegate SOA to IT, we, the authors, have failed miserably. We throw up our hands. SOA must be a joint endeavor between business and IT. You have everything to gain if you make SOA a joint venture — and everything to lose if you position SOA in your company as a new cool project for an IT development team.
Don’t Go It Alone
An entire industry is waiting to help you. Don’t ignore it. Beg, borrow, steal — get help. Reinventing the world all by yourself is definitely anti-SOA thinking. Talk to your peers, and consult with integrators and SOA vendors. We also think you should look at offerings that include templates, models, roadmaps, and best practices.
Don’t Think You’re Too Special
Stick to standards and standard interfaces. The proprietary software you build will be your downfall. The ...
