SOA architecture opens the door to success for cloud computing

Private clouds and shared clouds often rely on their functional APIs, which are typically network services that can be combined and reorganized. But in fact: SOA is still the essence. For those IT organizations that turn to cloud computing, whether they understand SOA (service-oriented architecture: Service-oriented architecture), the key issue is that organizations that define and implement cloud computing do not understand SOA well. Although they built SOA by default, they didn't have the right steps to work with all the slices. They ended up with Franken-soa, where all aspects of cloud computing solutions were much better than expected.

So, what's Franken-soa? It's a bunch of cloud computing services that are the core of the application or process, mostly pre-installed. These services provide core functionality, including storage and computing capabilities, that are used in composite applications or in conformance with processes. However, they are not being used in a good architecture, which makes it difficult to change and difficult to manage.

In the Franken-soa architecture there is no governance, no identity authentication, no service management and service search. It's like driving an Indian car without a steering wheel. The car has plenty of power, but it could be hitting the wall and hitting the wall quickly.

The tragedy of this scenario is that cloud-driven franken-soa can avoid some planning and architectural foresight. But now those who define cloud computing think more about deployment than about architecture. Indeed, many people think that cloud computing will replace SOA. None of these people understand the value of SOA---or any architectural or planning measures.

I think the FRANKEN-SOA model will still be there for a long time.