A core reference model to guide the creation of specific SOAs is in the works, thanks to a new committee by international standards consortium OASIS. Driven by a need for continuity across the industry, the SOA Reference Model (SOA-RM) Technical Committee will strive to deliver a normative SOA reference model by the end of the year.
Currently, "there is no normative, standard definition of exactly what SOA is and means," notes Duane Nickull, committee chair and senior standards strategist at Adobe Systems. Instead, large enterprise projects tend to involve products from multiple vendors, each of whom has their own idea about what SOA is.
"It is important from multiple perspectives to reach consensus on what SOA is," Nickull explains. "If SOA is architecture, as its name implies, then it should be definable as architecture and sufficiently different from other types of architecture."
