SOA orders Amazon

For architects who believe detailed advanced planning will be the key to a successful SOA implementation, an alternative approach is offered by Werner Vogels, VP worldwide architecture and CTO at Amazon.com, TechTarget reports.

In 1995, Amazon started with a simple Web ordering application running on a single server. The architecture was so simple it was literally drawn on a cocktail napkin. There was no grand plan to build an SOA platform that today features as many as 150 Web services on its home page alone.

"We more or less naturally became a platform," Vogels said of the technological evolution. In a brief history of Amazon`s technology, he showed how one server for databases of customer information and inventory grew to two servers, one for customer info and one for inventory. As the business got bigger with more customers and more products, more and more database servers were added.

Enterprise solution vendor Flashline has added new automation features for its namesake registry/repository, designed to automatically populate, track and update metadata for Web services and other assets in SOA implementations, particularly with Microsoft Visio architectural diagrams, TechTarget reports.

Among its customers, Microsoft`s Visio is the favoured tool architects use for designing SOA implementations, said Flashline CEO Charles Stack. A plug-in was built using the open API within Visio, so architects can submit the Visio diagram into the Flashline repository.

Once the Visio diagram is in the repository, Flashline "introspects" the Visio diagram to look at relationships to Web services and other assets as they have been diagrammed, he said. The relationships are then represented in metadata, thus providing online documentation for the SOA project.

The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has seen the first benefits of a move to increase the efficiency of its technology procurement process, Mikrofax.com reports.

The procurement changes force compliance with the DHS enterprise architecture, bringing the eight different procurement offices under the same umbrella of guidelines to reduce the potential for waste.

The projects most affected are the enterprise acquisition gateway for leading edge solutions (Eagle) and the FirstSource procurements, both with industry contract reviews under way. Together the vehicles are estimated to amount to spending of $8 billion a year. Eagle relates to IT support services and FirstSource will form the DHS`s pathway to procurement of other technology solutions.