Most engineering disciplines have managed to split their problems into one that of components assembly. Individual components are well defined and engineered to satisfy a very concise set of requirements. The system level problem then reduces to selecting proper components and assembling them to satisfy overall system's requirement.
Doing things this way has its benefits and it is well established by other branches of engineering. Software engineering is trying to do the same, but without much success. Atleast in business IT world. We have tried component based development (CBD) and now trying SOA. But we are not any closer to the pannacea of assembly of components.
What is that constraint, which is preventing software engineering to move to next level? Implicit in this question is an assumption that software engineering wants to move to a component assembly world. Well, I am not sure that is true either. And I am not alone in this thinking, see this post.
So the problem is not entirely technical. It is also of business motivation, and viable business models. In other branches of engineering, craft became engineering, when it promised to bring prosperity to all stakeholders. In software engineering, what is that business model, which will let multitudes of component makers flourish and big guns will just concentrate on component assembly? Is it standardisation effort, that is lacking? Is ultimate end IT user really interested in such component assembly world? Because in business IT world, the enterprise IT is main differentiator for an enterprise, which prevents it from being commoditized as a service or product provider.
These are the hard questions that industry must grapple with. Otherwise, every couple of years we will have, a wave, be it CBD or SOA and as an industry we'll not move much.
Each such wave (CBD, SOA) takes us further than today. But to make that transition to next level we need an industry wide push and not vendor specific attempts. And this must include all stakeholders - viz. business IT consumers, service providers and product vendors. Perhaps OMG can take lead?
These are my thoughts about various issues faced by an enterprise architect.
Here you will find thoughts related to enterprise architecture, TOGAF, SOA, BPM, MDA, MDD, Web 2.0 etc.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Sunday, January 21, 2007
CBD, SOA, whats next?
Most engineering disciplines have managed to split their problems into one that of components assembly. Individual components are well defined and engineered to satisfy a very concise set of requirements. The system level problem then reduces to selecting proper components and assembling them to satisfy overall system's requirement.
Doing things this way has its benefits and it is well established by other branches of engineering. Software engineering is trying to do the same, but without much success. Atleast in business IT world. We have tried component based development (CBD) and now trying SOA. But we are not any closer to the pannacea of assembly of components.
What is that constraint, which is preventing software engineering to move to next level? Implicit in this question is an assumption that software engineering wants to move to a component assembly world. Well, I am not sure that is true either. And I am not alone in this thinking, see this post.
So the problem is not entirely technical. It is also of business motivation, and viable business models. In other branches of engineering, craft became engineering, when it promised to bring prosperity to all stakeholders. In software engineering, what is that business model, which will let multitudes of component makers flourish and big guns will just concentrate on component assembly? Is it standardisation effort, that is lacking? Is ultimate end IT user really interested in such component assembly world? Because in business IT world, the enterprise IT is main differentiator for an enterprise, which prevents it from being commoditized as a service or product provider.
These are the hard questions that industry must grapple with. Otherwise, every couple of years we will have, a wave, be it CBD or SOA and as an industry we'll not move much.
Each such wave (CBD, SOA) takes us further than today. But to make that transition to next level we need an industry wide push and not vendor specific attempts. And this must include all stakeholders - viz. business IT consumers, service providers and product vendors. Perhaps OMG can take lead?
Doing things this way has its benefits and it is well established by other branches of engineering. Software engineering is trying to do the same, but without much success. Atleast in business IT world. We have tried component based development (CBD) and now trying SOA. But we are not any closer to the pannacea of assembly of components.
What is that constraint, which is preventing software engineering to move to next level? Implicit in this question is an assumption that software engineering wants to move to a component assembly world. Well, I am not sure that is true either. And I am not alone in this thinking, see this post.
So the problem is not entirely technical. It is also of business motivation, and viable business models. In other branches of engineering, craft became engineering, when it promised to bring prosperity to all stakeholders. In software engineering, what is that business model, which will let multitudes of component makers flourish and big guns will just concentrate on component assembly? Is it standardisation effort, that is lacking? Is ultimate end IT user really interested in such component assembly world? Because in business IT world, the enterprise IT is main differentiator for an enterprise, which prevents it from being commoditized as a service or product provider.
These are the hard questions that industry must grapple with. Otherwise, every couple of years we will have, a wave, be it CBD or SOA and as an industry we'll not move much.
Each such wave (CBD, SOA) takes us further than today. But to make that transition to next level we need an industry wide push and not vendor specific attempts. And this must include all stakeholders - viz. business IT consumers, service providers and product vendors. Perhaps OMG can take lead?
2 comments:
-
Pankaj Arora said...
-
In my view software industry is moving forward at slow pace. We need to look in timeframe of decade instead of months or years elapsed. Industry already has matured reusable frameworks in different layers. And moreover it is transtioning from object oriented world to service oriented world.
One constraint, I see is business is very conservative in taking calculated risk which comes as part of any change. -
5:36 AM
-
Alex Mulder, The Netherlands said...
-
In my experience software engineers and Architects (professionals) do try to invest work for long-term profits, but the Business is not interested in long-term profits, they (managers) mostly see only short-term targets.
This is true for other businesses too :) -
12:23 PM
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
In my view software industry is moving forward at slow pace. We need to look in timeframe of decade instead of months or years elapsed. Industry already has matured reusable frameworks in different layers. And moreover it is transtioning from object oriented world to service oriented world.
One constraint, I see is business is very conservative in taking calculated risk which comes as part of any change.
In my experience software engineers and Architects (professionals) do try to invest work for long-term profits, but the Business is not interested in long-term profits, they (managers) mostly see only short-term targets.
This is true for other businesses too :)
Post a Comment