It seems like not a day goes by lately in which some new story of malfeasance in office doesn't come out - whether it's lying under oath, using the services of a call girl, or spying on other officials in the government in order to further a personal agenda. Clear...

I had the opportunity recently to speak at a Microsoft event on Web 2.0. It was an interesting evening, with speakers from several organizations discussing various issues and strategies that could be used to move the bar forward on the Web. Now if you're a faithfu...

As a student of physics, Albert Einstein is one of my personal heroes. Aside from being one of the most brilliant minds to ever contemplate the universe, Albert had a way with words. One of his quotes strikes me as particularly apropos for this month's issue - 'Any ...

Last month I wrote about the future, what might be ahead for SOA and beyond, focusing significantly on user interfaces. This month I'm still thinking about user interfaces and the impact they have on the final judge of any SOA project - the end user. If you've read ...

At the end of the year, it's always interesting to take a moment and try to imagine what's next. In this case, I'm not thinking about whether the Patriots will win the Super Bowl, I'm wondering what comes after service-oriented architecture. Although SOA has been ...

Recently I had a chance to do some training in France. I participated in a week of coursework with classmates from all over the world. Some were from France, Spain, Holland, Sweden, and England; others were from even further - the United States and even India. To ...

I have no children myself, but I've watched my nieces and nephew grow from newborns to walking, talking, independent individuals over the years. To me, one of the most fascinating parts of watching a child grow is seeing them go from their first tentative, hesitant ...

SOA - which provides capabilities for loosely coupling these duplicate systems, federating the data between them and managing the concept of systems of record - is an enabler that eases the pain of bringing two entities together. Much like a catalyst that enables ...

When Web services first burst onto the scene, which in my mind was the beginning of the SOA movement, one of the biggest challenges faced by early implementers was the perceived lack of security. Fear and uncertainty abounded, and it was years before the majority ...

Recently SOAWorld Magazine was the host of a conference on SOA and Web 2.0 in New York City. SOAWorld 2007 brought together an amazing group of IT professionals who helped describe and expand the definitions of SOA. Web 2.0 is more than just AJAX. RSS feeds and bl...

Many recent science fiction novels deal with the concept of nanites - tiny bits of computers than can aggregate themselves to form new larger composites to assist their host. These concepts typically relate to making human cells self-healing, but they also have th...

We all do it from time to time - forget something, get it out of sequence - and experience that annoying feeling that we've just done something incredibly stupid. I usually arrive at the dry cleaners to pick up my clothes, only to realize I'd left the next batch b...

Sometimes it seems like it takes forever for new technology to be adopted, and even when a technology goes mainstream, it seems as if people cling to the old ways long after a better way has been shown. Heck, I drive a car but still have a couple of horses - som...

You know, I love an election year. The drama, the emotion, the positioning, it all makes me think about running for office myself - or at least going through the motions to generate a large war chest that I can dip into (I AM from New Jersey, it's a time-honored t...

This month I thought I'd put on my sales hat for a moment and talk about what it takes to actually sell someone on the concept of using service-oriented architecture as the underlying paradigm for an organization's information technology implementation and direc...

One of the most interesting aspects of being a consultant is that I get exposed to any number of different facets of system design in the course of an assignment. While I tend to focus more on application and integration work, I find it fascinating to deal with ...

In some ways, an industry is like a country. It has its citizens, the corporations, its own particular nuances that serve to make one industry just that much different from another (think insurance and financial services) as to be distinct, and it has a language.

There's a guy I know who's incredibly gifted when it comes to building things. I've watched him repair a barn, build a new shed, put up a roof - you name it; if it can be done with wood and tools, this is the guy to do it. And I've never seen him use a plan - he just knows what to do.

If I were a lot more paranoid than I am (well, perhaps at least a little more than I am), I might suspect that the various free e-mail programs were a social engineering attempt by the big software coalition (yes, I know, it doesn't exist) to ultimately change the ...

Nothing is more enlightening for a technologist than to observe development in progress. We're faced constantly with a bewildering array of choices and tools. We see specifications on paper that then become something completely different when we actually get to ...

As editor, I review a great many proposals for articles. A good portion of them deal with SOA, which is to be expected. When I review them, I'm reminded that there are two very different views of SOA, which in my opinion are both equally true. I call this the SOA ...

It's sometimes funny to write about service-oriented architecture. One of the things I say often and believe is that you can't buy a service-oriented architecture. SOA is not just technology, it's philosophy, organizational change, and business transformation. T...

I'm sitting in the airport, waiting for my end-of-week flight, and listening to the latest security controversy. Apparently the government has compiled a database of phone records as part of their fight against terrorism - the theory being that by analyzing the ca...

If you work in the IT industry long enough, you're bound to hear one particular joke (well, you'll hear a number, I want to focus on this one) - 'What's the only thing worse than no architect on a project?' The answer of course is 'Two or more'. And of course that...

Recently I happened upon a blog site that had a discussion of one of my previous articles, one in which I proposed a need for a new 'browser.' The discussion was very interesting, but it was obvious to me I had not been clear about what I was asking for. Some of t...

Just about every publication, marketing brochure, and IT commercial currently on parade for your enjoyment contains some mention of service-oriented architecture. If products were still sold in boxes, instead of downloaded, you would see a bright sticker on the bo...

People who know me would generally agree I'm a straightforward guy - I pretty much just like to move in the direction I've said I was going, rather than try to move from side to side and finesse something. So when it comes to technology, I tend to like to go with ...

If you're old enough, you probably remember the whole episode with Al Haig in the White House, saying 'I'm in charge here' during the period when Reagan was shot. He wasn't really, but it's a good illustration of the concept of confusion, and how different people ...

It's December, and you know what that means: holiday wishes and New Year's predictions are due. That's right, once again we'll gaze into the WSJ mystic crystal ball (okay, so it's a Christmas ornament - we're on a budget here) and come up with our prognostications...

SOA - service-oriented architecture - seems to be on everyone's radar. It's rare to walk into an IT meeting where someone hasn't bombarded the audience with the current buzzwords, and where someone isn't extolling the virtues of an SOA. Somehow, even though it's n...

To paraphrase, 'I come not to praise the Browser, but to bury it.' Because the cold hard fact of application development is that the browser needs to die. Immediately. It's already caused more than enough damage. This may seem to be a harsh statement. After all, t...

Like many people in the industry, I'm torn over open source software. I'm not opposed to developers creating software and deciding they do it for the love of programming, and have no need for payment - if they want to give their work away, I see no reason why they ...

I have a friend who's very into automobiles. He gets a new car every year or two - not expensive ones, but ones that can be used in stock racing (I know I'm getting the term wrong somehow) and time trials. He likes to drive and tries to get the most out of his veh...

This column might have been titled 'on the SOAPbox,' except I think I used that one already. Nevertheless, I want to discuss platforms. Politicians used to use platforms, (real ones, not some murky promises that they abandon after the election) to stand above the ...

When I was in college, I considered becoming a teacher, but then the thought of the pay scale as well as some time spent substitute teaching convinced me that computers might be a better way to go. I mention this because I never did get the chance to take any educ...

Sometimes the old clichés are the best ones. I've been working with a number of different groups and companies recently, defining and refining their takes on service-oriented architecture and Web services. In thinking about the different perspectives necessary f...

Despite the fact that I have a toolbox full of tools, I'm not a mechanic. I have wrenches and sockets in all sizes and shapes, and because I'm not inherently tidy, they tend to get all mixed up in the toolbox as I use them. So as you may expect, when it comes time...

Recently, Paris Hilton's cell phone was hacked, and all her contact information was released on the Internet. Although I wasn't important enough to rate a listing, many other celebrities were apparently flooded with phone calls after their private numbers became o...

Sean Rhody, editor-in-chief of Web Services Journal and Anne Thomas Manes, vice president and research director at Burton Group discussed Web Services trends on Rhody's 'Web Services Update' SYS-CON.TV (www.SYS-CON.TV) program. They also discussed today's UDDI v...

One of the fun parts of being a software architect is trying to figure out how to build whatever it is that you are supposed to build. It's even more fun when you look at the architecture for an entire enterprise, and have to make choices that integrate every co...