Chris Harding

SAN DIEGO -- There are so many things going on at every Conference by The Open Group that it is impossible to keep track of all of them, and this week’s conference here is no exception. The main themes are cybersecurity, enterprise architecture, SOA and cloud computing. Additional topics range from real-time and embedded systems to quantum lifecycle management. But there are a number of common threads running through all of those themes, relating to value delivered to IT customers through open systems. One of those threads is interoperability. Interoperability panel session The interoperability thread showed strongly in several sessions on the opening day of the conference, Monday Feb. 7, starting with a panel session on Interoperability Challenges for 2011 that I was fortunate to have been invited to moderate. [Disclosure: The Open Group is a sponsor of BriefingsDire... (more)

Testing SOA Solutions

Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) has been discussed as an important architectural style for the last few years. Organizations have started to develop service-oriented solutions and many are now leveraging services in their production environments. SOA introduces new technical complexities and challenges and makes testing a critical component of the development lifecycle. Teams need to think about: How do you know if the solution is ready? How do you know that it will scale to accommodate future needs? How do you know that you can actually get the business flexibility that SOA ... (more)

The Evolution of SOA Hinges on an Open Marketplace for Services

We can't foresee the full potential of Service Oriented Architecture any more than Henry Ford could have foreseen the scale of today's automotive industry when the first Model T rolled off the production line nearly a hundred years ago. But there are signs that it will be equally far-reaching. If so, this will because of the same force that made Ford rich: the open market. Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) is an architectural style in which the software applications are organized as loosely coupled services. It's being adopted by many enterprises today because it results in agil... (more)

Learning from SOA Mistakes

Today, global businesses are increasingly turning to Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) for their information technology infrastructure and applications. SOA is becoming an increasingly practiced approach to building software solutions as it can support integration and consolidation of activities in complex enterprise systems. This year the percentage of functioning SOAs has almost doubled, according to Evans Data Corporation's latest Web Services development survey: "Twenty-four percent of respondents (the sample data set being 400) are saying they currently implement SOA, an ... (more)

A Peaceful Leap to Cloud Computing

History has many examples of invaders wielding steel swords, repeating rifles, or whatever the latest weapon may be, driving out people who are less well-equipped. Corporate IT departments are starting to go the same way, at the hands of people equipped with cloud computing. Recently I was at The Open Group conference in Boston. The Open Group is neutral territory with a good view of the IT landscape: An ideal place to watch the conflict develop. The Open Group Cloud Computing Work Group has been focused on the business reasons why companies should use cloud computing. The Work Gro... (more)