Not only did Forrester Research count some 115 standards floating around SOA and web services in its most recent study on that topic, but also, it found that just confirming which vendors support which standards is nearly impossible. Yet CIOs must press ahead with SOA projects in order to meet business needs. Hong Zhang, director and chief architect of IT Architectures and Standards at General Motors, has been balancing the standards dilemma with ongoing SOA work for several years.
Zhang says it's actually good that there are many standards related to SOA. "This indicates that the software industry is moving toward a broad adoption of SOA," he says. "The challenge is that there is no common, consistent architectural framework to guide the evolution, integrity and integration across these standards. Many of these standards are not yet mature."
