SOA as a Component. Now, this one is interesting. SOA is mentioned and placed as a little square in some place of the diagram, and is given responsibilities and interfaces. Of course, this view of SOA as a component that can be use to construct an architecture, also breaks the idea of the SOA as a whole. It may fit, if that component is a subsystem that was created using the SOA style. But then, that component should be a subsystem, and the way it was implemented should not be its name!

SOA as a Service Group. Well, here there is not component, but just a container of all services I have. Yes, a group of services. SOA is then the place where you can find the services your architecture is using. I hope I don’t have to explain why this is a very wrong view.

SOA as a BP container. BP stands for Business Process. (Yes, it is not a “BPM container”, since the M stands for management: you create BPs and you work with them in a BPM system). So, SOA is just a container of BPs, and it is needed to have BPs implemented. Right. Of course that is not true. BPs can be implemented without SOA in the first place, since they are business abstractions that may not use the service metaphor or use it for just two or three calls, which will not make the architecture a Service oriented one. Services and BPs work in the business abstraction layer, meaning they refer to business functionality and not about object and methods. That is, they are the working units of business analysts and integrators. Still, SOA is an architecture, a container for BPs is just a container, and the services will be just a bunch of services. An architecture takes more than that to be SOA:

SOA as a Modernization Agent. As mentioned above, SOA is meant to be used to reuse old code, and to allow new interfaces for new layers to interoperate with ancient programs. Services could be use for that, but that will not make your architecture a SOA complaint. SOA will require the complete architecture to be made using the services metaphor, not just for accessing the old code, but to rethink the business solution.

Do you know any other conception of SOA I’m missing?

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