A couple years ago, many asked whether SOA would kill ERP. I do not know the answer to this question but I certainly know that ERP vendors do not want to sit and wait when such thing happen. They have started to migrate into SOA (maybe hoping to kill it first).
Well, we have to be accurate with 'migrate into SOA' because this means only that ERP products started offering Web Services as communication means. In reality, this is killing SOA indeed. Why? Because communication via Web Services has nothing to do with service-oriented architecture. The ERP products did not change their internal components making them operating on the principles of service orientation; instead they attached new interfaces that had word 'service' in their names. Such futuristic migration into SOA is similar to calling 'flying fish' a 'bird'.
Nonetheless, there is one rational in this story. Many products now offer their features via Web Services. This is quite positive movement because Web Services accumulate significant number of standards and we can say that access to many products is much more standardised now than before. We certainly need a term, which can indicate the 'webservice-ation'. What Web Services bring to the products? It is a simpler standard-based ability to integrate with other systems and products. So, let us call it IOA - Integration-Oriented Architecture. Such architecture concerns about standardised integration means, which may be not necessary Web Services but REST and other technologies.
All right, doing Web Services, we are doing IOA!
(And, please, leave SOA for services)
Courtesy:Michael Poulin, ebizq.net
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