Service Oriented Elephant?
SOA applicability is very dependent on an organization's environment. Recently I got into a discussion about "SOA in the small." Is it feasible? I think not. But IMHO elements of SOA can be applied to the organization to fit into an enterprise SOA roadmap
This discussion reminded me of a couple of presentations I had made at a couple of conferences. I have combined these into a slideware presentation.
The fable of "The Six Blind Men and the Elephant" comes to mind. Stakeholders investing in SOA need to see benefits that are relevant to each and every one of them. Otherwise, you start losing the investors. Each stakeholder has a different view of SOA. I dub the the entire SOA landscape the "Service Oriented Elephant."
Your perspective of SOA will be depend on which end (or side) of the Service Oriented Elephant you end up at. But don't forget that in the end, there has to be an elephant for the parts (tail, tusks, ears, legs, side, or trunk) to make any sense. Similarly, there has to be comprehensive view of the "Service Oriented Enterprise" for any investment in SOA. You don't have to do it all, but there has to be an "all."
