Cloud Computing and SOA Convergence in Your Enterprise: A Step ...

Moving Onward 221
puting may be of huge benefit to your enterprise IT, you have to consider all
of the angles we laid out in Chapter 4.
Q: What about cloud computing standards going forward
A: Standards are important to SOA and thus should extend to cloud computing.
There are over 150 separate SOA standards, called the WS-* standards,
ranging from standard ways of doing messaging to standard ways of doing
governance. Many in the world of cloud computing consider cloud computing
as a new space that needs new standards. The fact is, most of the standards
we have worked on in the world of SOA over the past several years are
applicable to the world of cloud computing. Cloud computing is simply a
change in platform, and the existing architectural standards we leverage
should transfer nicely to the cloud computing space.
Having said that, since many consider the cloud computing space to be
“new,” we will surely see cloud computing–specific standards emerge, perhaps
standards that address the need for portability of code and standards
interfaces. Those are fine, but we should look at the existing SOA standards
in the world of cloud computing, and not create new standards for the sake
of creating new standards.
Standards are a double-edged sword; they clearly provide some value by
protecting you from vendor-specific standards, in this case, cloud lock-in.
However, they can delay things as enterprise ITs wait for the standards to
emerge. Moreover, they may not live up to expectations when they do arrive
and not provide the anticipated value.
Standards should be driven by existing technologies rather than by defining
new standards approaches for new technologies. While the latter does
occasionally work, more often it leads to design-by-committee and poor
technology. Past failures around standards should make this less of an issue
in the world of cloud computing.
So, when considering SOA and cloud computing standards, take a few
things into consideration:
Standards should be driven by three or more technology vendors that actually
plan to employ the standard. Watch out for standards that include
just one vendor and many consulting organizations.
Standards should be well defined. This means the devil is in the details,
and a true standard should be defined in detail all the way down to the