David Linthicum, ebizQ blogger and CEO of BridgeWERX, joins a high-level panel here at InfoWorld's SOA Executive Forum, discussing where we are in the different stacks and the status of standards and standards organizations in the integration space.
The panel sort of agreed that the trouble with standards right now is that there are now no base protocols, no fully developed programs that encompass all that standards could be. But Dave said, "Every SOA out there is different. So that this notion that we could have this stack, or one set of standards for SOA, is ABSURD. Understand that if you're going to get into this game you're going to have to spend a lot of time understanding your own requirements.
"The architectures have different needs, different specs, and there's no way to standardize this. This isn't really my opinion, it's fact," Dave said.
Dave was asked when he thinks the time will be right for standards. Here are some of his comments:
"I'm sort of the Wilford Brimley of the SOA world. I'm telling you it's hard when the marketing people are saying it's easy. The people who write to my blog and send me emails and call in to the podcast, they're confused.
"I'm very bullish on standards. But today there are standards being created for the selfish needs of the vendors. And the reality of it if you want to get into a space is that you develop the technology, then write the standard, and then try to get it adopted by a standards body. It's inhibiting the growth of the market.
"What needs to happen is that the user communities need to push back on the number and confusion of standards. Should probably have single instances of standards, come to an agreement of what needs to be in the stack.
"Going forward, I'm seeing another disturbing trend. There are standards that exist that are not yet fully developed. BPEL is an example of this. Using Oracle or IBM BPEL stacks, they are not going to have portability from stack to stack. It's very disturbing that the biggest companies are doing this."
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