If I see another article on SOA I'm going to hurl.

SOA... it's the new TLA (Three Letter Abbreviation) of the year. What's amusing is that it really isn't so much "new" as it is XML reborn. Last year (and the year before that) when XML was all the rage and .Net was Microsoft's vision, most of the conversation around it wasn't so much about the different things that XML could bring to the table. Rather, it was how XML could abstract our old friend, the RPC (Remote Procedure Call). (Yes, I find TLAs amusing.)

The problem was that everyone got burnt out on XML as a TLA that was going FKS (Fix the Kitchen Sink) because they weren't seeing how solutions around it were manifesting.

When the developers caught up to using XML, some very clever marketing fellow at IBM realized that going out with "XML" wasn't going to serve them ATW (All That Well). So with the whisk of the mouse, the XML was highlighted and SOA was born. Now, in fairness, SOA isn't just XML. Our marketing friend at IBM broadened up the meeting and even created a superset definition "ESB" (Enterprise Service Bus) to show that the idea was really well fleshed out. Good work. I hear a few people are talking about it.

But in every solution comes a new problem. And fixing problems breeds opportunity. :-)

All this SOA stuff is causing a bit of a headache for applications that are using it. Suddenly, their classic Layer 7 application switching infrastructure stopping work as well. They slow down, lack sufficiently application depth, or require all manners of weird hacks to make work. Don't even get me started about vendors that require customers to program networking devices. While there are some interesting service opportunities for channel partners, the reality is that most folks can't program, don't want to program, or don't have the time to program. The point in buying a turnkey solution from a Layer 7 vendor is that it is turnkey.

Mmm... I love the smell of opportunity in the morning.