Methods Applicable to Integration Projects

Table of contents:

It has been several years of questionning and investigation for a 'proper' SOA methodology. I read many books about SOA and often did not even finished them for they usually contained just good sense rules, boringly obvious statements, else collections of heuristics promoted as scientific disciplines. I looked too at many white papers and next to having finished with their reading, I usually found myself unable to explain their contents for they were so often so superficial. There was only a few exceptions, some to be found in forums formulated by anonymous people, but only partial answers to my questions.

Yet, the least convincing stuff was the hype about Business Process Modelling (BPM). I observed numerous BPM efforts from a distance (I always denied to participate), sometimes on a very grand scale. I never found myself convinced about the capability of these initiatives to yield any results worth the associated effort. I was even amused by looking at the IT architects' runs, trying to catch up with the natural pace of changes in large enterprises, in order to just keep their models up to date. Where is the value?

Then a French colleague told me about , a public methodology for the (sic) design of "sustainable IT systems". I read the material publicly available, but wasn't able to grasp the essence of the methodology. Yet something occured: It did not look superficial, and contained no rule of thumb but formal rules and principles. Enough to decide me to attend the 2-Day introduction course by the authors of the method.

The training class was a revelation, because all the techniques I already knew about, and many bits that I discovered by myself were suddenly assembled into a coherent methodology in which Services are no longer produced by guess-works raised into principles, but are actually derived from carefully crafted modeling activities... almost mathematically calculated! And they told at the same time why BPM is definitely not the right view-angle, providing me with the cause to my suspicion that I wasn't capable to explain.

I decided to invest myself fully in the methodology, and also to contribute, with my modest expertise and the limited time I can devote. A first element is this set of overviews of the methodology in English (including a live webinar).

The method is public, and the original material can be found at these web sites:

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