Presentation: Jim Webber on "Guerilla SOA"

Posted by Stefan Tilkov on Jan 29, 2008

Sections

Architecture & Design,

Enterprise Architecture

Topics

ESB ,

SOA ,

Hype

Tags

WCF ,

SOAP ,

Web services ,

Microsoft

In one of the most entertaining presentations on the topic ever, Dr. Jim Webber, SOA practice lead at ThoughtWorks, used his presentation at the QCon conference to debunk myths about the mainstream ESB concept. Jim argues that there's an alternative to the typical, heavyweight and expensive approach to introducting SOA and and explains how a lightweight approach can yield real benefits without giving in to vendor pressure. In Jim's opinion, the industry's belief in the ESB as the core concept, at least in the way it's usually used, is fundamentally mistaken. Jim claims that an ESB often ends up being just a thin veneer on an existing mess, and how an approach that doesn't put intelligence into the network is superior.

Don't miss the full presentation (53"), which is not only very interesting from a technical standpoint, but also quite hilarious. (Jim Webber will again be presenting at QCon London 2008, which takes place in March.)

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   youtube

   by Jeremy Barth

   Not a big deal, but my posse and I aren't able to watch this video at work. If you threw it on youtube we'd be able to.
   
   Jeremy

   Reply

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   Re: youtube

   by Dong Liu

   FireFox cannot connect, but controls are there. IE can play, but no controls.

   Reply

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   Re: youtube

   by Stefan Tilkov

   We hear you loud and clear. A better solution for video streaming is coming to InfoQ Real. Soon. Now. Promised.

   Reply

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   Re: youtube

   by Axel Gross

   works fine in epiphany
   great presentation btw :)

   Reply

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   Adding features to a service without changing it

   by Darrell Russell

   Great presentation, very thoughtful.
   
   I have a question though. I'm trying to think through one of the advantages I think you can get with an ESB architecture. If all messages go via an ESB then features such as security, logging, routing, transformations can be:
   1. Managed centrally .. so no need for individual services to implement these features.
   2. New features, and updates to old features, can be managed seperately from the services themselves.
   
   This strikes me as positive things becuase it means that different aspects of services can be managed/deployed/changed seperately.
   
   Maybe the features I'm talking about are just technical services? You very, very briefly touched upon technical services in your presentation.
   
   Any thoughts? Or should I just buy the book?

   Reply

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   Technical Details

   by Martin Probst

   Great presentation, very charismatic guy.
   
   Though I'm a bit worried that he goes over the technical issues with SOAP and WS-* in general, and federated transactions in particular, a bit too quick.
   
   In my experience, most of WS-* simply doesn't work. That's not so bad, as most of it doesn't have any value to me, too, but still ;-).
   
   Distributed transactions in particular have been dismissed by many experts that have worked on the topic for ages. There are highly plausible arguments that they might never work at all.
   
   There is still a lot of work to be done, and at I'm very sceptical if all the WS-* stuff is actually helping to get stuff done or just an impediment.

   Reply

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   Re: youtube

   by Niels Tindbæk

   what about downloading?

   Reply

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