Latest News from Paul O'Connor

SOA Product Review: Intel XML Software Suite 1.1

Tue, 28 Oct 2008 13:00:00 EDT

The one thing that unifies the distributed computing style known as SOA, in most of its manifestations, is self-describing data via the Extensible Markup Language (XML). The benefits of XML over opaque message formats in data interchange are well established. No matter if your focus is SOAP, REST, POX, or syndication with RSS or ATOM, your applications will revolve around XML processing.

SOA Product Review: Managed Methods JaxView 4.0

Sun, 17 Aug 2008 10:00:00 EDT

Whether you work for a very large company with thousands of services in production or a small company with only a couple, visibility into the performance and uptime of those services is critical. Before you start investigating the myriad of governance products on the market, many of which will set you back a great deal of money, let me save you some time (and money).

SOA World Product Review: iTKO LISA 4 SOA Testing

Mon, 21 Jan 2008 16:00:00 EST

Testing is a first-order constituent of SOA governance. Assuring that services and service infrastructure components meet functional and technical requirements across lifecycle stages and environments, including production, is an architectural precept in SOA. Gone are the days when testing was an isolated hop in the old disjointed SDLC.

SOA Software Service Manager 5.0 + Workbench 5.0 Product Review

Thu, 30 Aug 2007 11:45:00 EDT

Many enterprises are currently reorganizing their people, processes, and technology around services. A few are holistically revamping their enterprise architectures around SOA and embarking on roadmaps to achieve grandiose business goals.

En Masse SOA Enablement Methodology Distilled

Mon, 26 Feb 2007 16:30:00 EST

Part I of this series observed that 2006 was the year in which many large-scale SOA projects were kicked off in medium and large enterprises. Which means that an all-encompassing methodology that could evolve SOA to the enterprise was needed. Much has been written about service analysis and design for SOA but not so much about methodologies for creating an all-encompassing SOA, including the infrastructure - and, after all, it's the SOA infrastructure that supports service interactions and agility through the change management of services and metadata.

En Masse SOA Enablement Methodology Distilled

Sun, 29 Oct 2006 18:45:00 EST

I never quite fathomed the software development methodology craze that was gripping enterprise computing when I came onto the scene in the early '90s. In those days development teams were managing complexity and enforcing quality via draconian software development life cycles (SDLCs).

SOA Will Kill the Offshore Model

Thu, 02 Feb 2006 09:45:00 EST

I know what you're thinking: SOA hype has reached an absurd level and now someone is literally proclaiming that it will change the world - but bear with me for a minute. Anyone who has been around corporate IT for the last five years or so has seen an avalanche of development work sent offshore for two primary reasons: cheaper unit labor cost and the flat-out inability to find qualified American developers. Also, the mainstay system development model whereby business units built up app silos, which served to minimize reuse and increase integration complexity, demanded a way to deal with the cost of its own inefficiency.

Eight Things SOA Is Not; What Not To Do In Your Next SOA Web Services Rollout

Tue, 28 Jun 2005 10:00:00 EDT

Sometimes when we're faced with addressing a complex engineering problem it's helpful to reflect on antipatterns. Doing so does more than track wrong solutions to common problems; it also focuses the mind on the interaction of the most important elements of the problem domain. This is true for all engineering, not just software engineering. Suspension bridge designers know to be on the lookout for torsional oscillations because of the collapse of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, but they also better understand the importance of stiffening the structure in general. The goal is to limit the number of times the antipattern emerges and to notice it when it comes around again. SOA uptake is at a point where such a treatment of antipatterns is helpful.

Solve Your Application Security Issues

Thu, 02 Dec 2004 00:00:00 EST

I'm sure I'm like many of you in this respect: I got into engineering because I love the idea of being able to address complex problems with a combination of my talent, my friends' talent, and the tools that I can come up with to make our work as easy as possible (work smart not hard!). It is this approach that has guided me in my work as an application and technical architect.