Cloud computing is becoming a popular buzzword, which is leading many to believe that the adoption of the technology will have the effect of fairy dust, magically fixing their problems like an antivirus that doesn’t depend on signatures or a fairy godmother. Marketing aside, cloud computing is still just that —computing—as such, architecture is an integral aspect that needs to remain prevalent in the minds of developers and architects.

SOA is necessary to integrate contemporary IT assets with the growing market of cloud computing technologies. Those who are dependent on the cloud, such as SaaS providers and the like are eagerly looking to recruit talented SOA professionals to bolster their staffs.

The stark reality is that demand far outpaces supply for truly talented individuals. According to cloud expert David Linthicum of ebizq.net, less talented individuals tend to “leverage whatever the next magical and hyped technology is in the hopes that no one will notice that the existing architecture is a huge mess, and the addition of cloud computing resources will just make it messier,”

Vendors only exacerbate the problems by slapping the cloud label onto everything. What they should be doing is establishing the SOA necessary to build an effective cloud environment, which is usually what they are selling. Vendors feeding into this kind of hype only serves to confuse end users and to contribute to the fairy-dust aura around cloud computing.

To get away from this, vendors and consumers both need to start thinking architecturally, instead of just looking to toss technology at problems. To do this we’re going to need more star players in the SOA arena.

Two distinct compute cloud offerings are emerging – cloud as IT infrastructure and cloud as software services provider – as noted by SOA Talk in any earlier blog, Forrester sees two compute clouds.

Another analyst firm, IDC, surveyed companies to find out what they expect from the growing offerings in the category of IT cloud services. In an informative three-part analysis on the IDC eXchange blog, Gens looks at the priorities of potential customers, who are crossing the chasm.

“The survey results suggest we’re entering a period of accelerating IT cloud services adoption,” Gens reports, “with the portion of organizations exhibiting significant adoption moving from 15-25% today to 25-45% in three years.”

Some of IDC’s findings are not surprising. Organizations want cloud services to be inexpensive, readily available, and as easy to get up an running on as existing Software as a Service (SaaS) offerings from innovators such as Salesforce.com.

But what may seem surprising is the willingness of IT organizations to try the wares of startup cloud services vendors.

Gens notes “when it comes to cloud services vendor selection, customers are less biased toward their large, established incumbent suppliers, and are more interested in whether the supplier is a “future-oriented innovator.”

For established vendors this means they are going to have to come up to speed quickly and demonstrate innovation to keep up with nimble startups that are on the leading edge of cloud services.

One other important qualification noted by both IDC and Forrester is the obvious requirement for security from cloud vendors.

New IBM cloud program

Focusing on compute cloud security and “resiliency,” IBM today announced a new program to certify those qualities in “companies delivering applications or services to clients in a cloud environment.”

IBM’s “Resilient Cloud Proven Validation” is designed to “accelerate the adoption of cloud computing significantly, by allowing businesses of all sizes to find a cloud
provider that fits their needs and meets stringent security and resiliency standards” the company said.

Granted, I only polled half a dozen people (though I’ll note here that they are half a dozen really smart people). The response I got from all of them is that WOA strikes them as redundant and nothing particularly new, an empty suit if you will. One wrote, “It reminds me a lot of the attempt by someone to gain some name recognition with the ‘SOA 2.0′ concept (which one vendor did try to use and then dropped after it was rejected by the SOA community).” Another responded, “It’s the same old thing, relabeled with an even MORE unwieldy name.”

Yet another noted, “This is just composite Web apps.”

Not a single one of them voiced a problem with the notion that Web-based development is an excellent place to concentrate your resources. In fact, some of the architects stated they are eagerly pursuing these sorts of development strategies.

That said, no one showed any love for the “WOA” acronym. “God forbid this take hold because it could complicate something the industry has been trying to simplify,” said one of the architects. He listed numerous reason why WOA, as a term, could do more harm than good:

• Users should have exactly one enterprise architecture, many don’t and they don’t need the confusion of “which architecture should I use?”
• WOA doesn’t really have an underlying architecture, it’s more a set of best practices around REST, RIA and composite apps.
• If users perceive WOA to be outside the principles of SOA, it could prove an excellent vehicle for building Web-based stovepipes.
• WOA toes and sometimes crosses the line of being technology driven. “We plan on using Google Apps, but Google Apps needs to fit into our structure, not the other way around.”

That last point about the potential technology driven nature of WOA was a point of contention for another architect. “One of the big problems we’ve had to fight is people who act as if SOA is tied to middleware or specific standards like SOAP or to a specific data format like XML. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Just because you’ve got some new technology to use doesn’t mean you go back to shoddy engineering. Everyone should know better than to let a specific hot technology drive the bus. It will cool off and you still need to be in business.”

Strikeiron CEO Dave Linthicum has also blogged about the upside of WOA. He pitched WOA as a potential gateway to SOA.

What is changing quickly is that enterprises are finding that the path of least resistance is in essence to build their SOAs on the Web, using Web resources, including content, internet delivered APIs, and Web services. Once there is success with WOA you’ll see the same patterns emerging behind the firewall, or SOA.

The polled architects viewed that as a perfectly legitimate approach, but one noted, “It’s still SOA. I just don’t see where WOA adds anything. Terms like this tend to make people in the field angry. In this case, it’s an attempt to sell them something they’ve already bought. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t want to use REST or build composite apps using Web tools.”

Time will tell whether WOA gains traction, but these architects expressed an unequivocal desire to have no more than one something-oriented architecture in their lives.

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Other topics covered in this interview include:

• How users are more likely to have an “enterprise service network” with multiple ESBs rather than a single or master ESB
• The role of open source in SOA development
• Why neither the Java EE nor .NET meets are well-suited to service orientation
• The roadmap for the Mulesource, particularly in the management area
• What constitutes “SOA infrastructure”
• Data issues, including getting data out of 3rd party SaaS applications

It’s about time some sane, responsible folks pointed out that we’re heading into buzzword overkill with “as a service.” Yet we’d be remiss if we didn’t have some irresponsible fun with aaS before it becomes yesterday’s catchphrase.

For instance, here’s a list of software possibilities that still haven’t had their aaSes handed to them:

• Hidden License Fees as a Service (HLFaaS)
• Stovepipe Application Sprawl as a Service (SASaaS)
• Integration Spaghetti as a Service (ISaaS)
• Every Vendor Insures Lock-in as a Service (EVILaaS)
• Must Upgrade to the Expensive Enterprise Version If You Want It to Scale as a Service (MUttEEVIYWItSaaS)
• Rogue Services as a Service (RSaaS)

Also, as we all know fortune cookie proverbs are made infinitely better by adding ‘in bed” at the end. Let’s try that with “as a service.”

• Count your blessings by thinking of those whom you love … as a service.
• Plan for many pleasures ahead … as a service.
• Something you lost will soon turn up … as a service.
• Good things are being said about you … as a service.
• Fame, riches and romance are yours for the asking … as a service.
• A friend asks only of your time … as a service.
• Romance comes into your life this year in a very unusual sort of way … as a service.
• Stop and smell the roses … as a service.
• Someday you shall see a wise person in the mirror … as a service.
• He who shows too much cheek to a lady may have it slapped … as a service.