Wednesday, September 12. 2007

SOA for GIS?

Talk about your long diatribes! The question of the day at GIS in the Rockies was..."Do you agree that service oriented architecture (SOA) is the key to enterprise data integration and interoperability?" It was answered by six panelists and while I missed a few responses by the distinguished panel members, I was able to hear the answer given by Dr. Joe Berry. Now, to put it mildly, Dr. Berry exceeded his five minute limit. But fear not, because after reading his response he mentioned that is was posted online. So, while I certainly could not do justice with a few pithy outtakes, the web is at least good at allowing allows to see his ENTIRE response. It was quite good but it truly left the other panelists at a disadvantage by mesmerizing them with his response and putting them in a heavy, late afternoon daze. The shortened version is that while SOA is an important evolutionary step for managing spatial information, it is not "revolutionary." Dr. Bill Gail of Microsoft focused his answer on how SOA can offer a "paradigm shift in the way we search for information." He said that, "search is only 5% solved today," referring to the nascient stages of using geospatial technology as a platform for search.

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Isn't SOA just a set of shiny presentations and buzzwords designed to extract money from upper management, while technically only proposing a watered down version of a the way things are really going -- the Web?!

Developers in particular should ignore this SOA nonsense and simply get involved in the Web and apply those lessons to architectures inside the enterprise. To adopt the SOA paradigm is to simply add cost to your budget..

#1 Mikel Maron (Link) on 2007-09-13 02:52 (Reply)

Dr Berry is continually amazing! From a second hand allusion to "SOAP without the P", to the dismissal of MapExploration (GE, VE ...) as the low end of the philosphers progression, Dr Berry keeps the focus on analysis. In the end GIS is all about anlysis and slowly analysis is making its way onto the web.

#2 randy george (Link) on 2007-09-13 10:30 (Reply)

Joe, I noticed that you had sneaked out by the time I got to speak - sorry we didn't get the chance to catch up. But I also posted an overview of my comments on my blog (link below).

#3 Peter Batty (Link) on 2007-09-18 17:55 (Reply)

Peter, your posting adds considerable meat to the discussion. As always, you have the rare knack of staying on topic, succinctly outlining the major points and infusing clear comments ...I encourage all interested in SOA's GIS expression and impact to checkout your thoughts.

#3.1 Joseph K. Berry (Link) on 2007-09-19 09:14 (Reply)

http://www.w3.org/TR/ws-arch/#service_oriented_architecture

#4 Terri Ise on 2007-09-19 10:00 (Reply)

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In reply to	[ Top level ]#1: Mikel Maron on 2007-09-13 02:52 #2: randy george on 2007-09-13 10:30 #3: Peter Batty on 2007-09-18 17:55   #3.1: Joseph K. Berry on 2007-09-19 09:14 #4: Terri Ise on 2007-09-19 10:00
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