In my previous blog post I compared the search results of Google trends for cloud computing, software as a service (SaaS) and service oriented architecture (SOA). You will ask yourself why did I compare SaaS, cloud computing and SOA?
They all share a commonality: They talk about services; and primarily not necessarily about technical services. Taking the definition of a service from the OASIS SOA reference model than a service is a mechanism that enables access to one or multiple capabilities. In case of cloud computing the capabilities provided are inside the cloud and the service enables access to the cloud. Software as a service offers access to the capabilities of software products.
So services seem to be really important. Steve Jones and Mike Morris explained the importance and comprehensibility of services with the words:
Service Oriented Architecture works because a Service represents a real world “what we do”.
Most people directly think about any technical operation when we talk about services. But a lot of services are part of our daily live.
We should understand SOA as an approach for service orientation with a well defined architecture and not as a bunch of technical services. Than this concept can also be applied outside IT. Theodore Levitt already stressed this point in 1972 saying:
“there are no such things as service industries. There are only industries whose service components are greater or lesser than those of other industries. Everybody is in service.”
If Mr. Levitt is right after all, than SOA should play a much bigger role in our lives than it used to.
How do you think? Can the principles and core concepts of SOA be applied in a non technical use case?
