Microsoft SOA & Business Process Conference – Day 1

Oct 03

Microsoft SOA & Business Process Conference – Day 1

I’m down in Redmond at the Microsoft SOA & Business Process Conference. Today was day 1 for most attendees including myself. Yesterday had various partner and panels meeting regarding various topics related to the conference and tools.

I attended the following sessions and listed below is a high level summary of the presentations:

SOA, BPM & Microsoft: A Pragmatic View
David Chappell – David Chappell & Associates

David spoke about vision as being required in the SOA but pragmatism being essential. He outlined the three pragmatic goals which will benefit every organization:
1. Standardizing on SO communication
2. Creating the necessary SO infrastructure
3. Using BPM technologies effectively.

Real World SOA
John deVadoss – Director, Architecture Strategy, Microsoft

John spoke about the real world SOA ROI crisis and being concerned when the “hype cycle” of SOA followed by a backlash against SOA. He’s emphasizing that “the good not be thrown out with the bad.” He made the point of SOA being a style of architecture. He went on to speak about the Expose/Compose/Consume model of SOA.

The Architecture of SOA
John Evdmon – Architect, Architecture Strategy, Microsoft

John spoke about current confusion in the industry of SOA and implementation of SOA, especially using web services. John went on to speak about the myths and facts of SOA as shown below:

Myths & Facts:

myth: SOA is a technology – fact: SOA is designed philosophically independent from any product, technology, or industry trend
myth: SOAs require Web Services – fact: May be realized via web services but using web services won’t necessarily result in a SOA
myth: SOA is new and revolutionary – fact: EDI, CORBA and DCOM were conceptual examples of SO
myth: SOA ensures alignment of it and business – fact: SOA is not a methodology
myth: A SOA reference architecture reduces implementation of risk – fact: SOAs are like snowflakes – no two are alike
myth: SOA requires a complete technology and business process overhaul – fact: SOA should be incremental and built on your current investments
myth: SOA requires and army of consultants – fact: Tools, not consultants
myth: We need to build a SOA – fact: SOA is a means, not an end
myth: SOAs result in reuse – fact: If reuse happens great – should not be the principle objective

John went on to describe the different perspectives on the Expose/Compose/Consume model of SOA for the following recurring architectural capabilities:

User interaction
Workflows & process
Data
Identity & Access
Messaging & Services

In his conclusion John went on to say that SOA should be a means to an end and that the main objective should be to deliver a solution, not an SOA.
Technical Solution Spaces for BizTalk Server
Oliver Sharp, General Manager BizTalk Server, Connected Systems Division, Microsoft

Oliver spoke about the product roadmap for 2006, 2007 and beyond. He touched briefly on the BizTalk 2006 R2 and how it was addressing needs under the following categories:

People-ready Processes
End-to-end Processes – B2B
End-to-end Processes – RFID

He went on to outline the next version of BizTalk which is currently in a planning stage. Oliver spoke about Model Driven Development and the current themes used to develop the next version. The purpose of a theme is to: