Loraine Lawson spoke with Steve Nunn, vice president and COO of the Open Group, a vendor-neutral and technology-neutral consortium that offers IT architect certification. The Open Group is also very involved with discussing and defining enterprise architecture. Its CEO, Allen Brown, was a keynote speaker for this year's Enterprise Architect Summit. Read part one of this interview here.

Lawson: What does enterprise architecture promise for integration?
Nunn: I would see enterprise architecture as the most sensible approach to integration efforts, in that if you take a true enterprise architecture approach, you are doing all the things that you would need to do to know that the integration projects that you're running are going to lead you to the end results you want. The obvious analogy is a building architect. All the plans, all the things a building architect might do. But enterprise architecture is not necessarily a direct correlation with a building architect. An enterprise architect is more like a city planner. It's looking at not just the building, but what facilities are needed, what the likely through-put is going to be, the demands on the system, all the things a city planner would look at if he were building a city from scratch or an infrastructure project in a city. That analogy resonates quite well and our members tell us it's one of the most effective ways they've found of explaining enterprise architecture to senior management.

Lawson: Why is there a problem between those in EA and SOA advocates and will it get resolved?
Nunn: I'll come back to why there's a problem. I see SOA as one way of doing enterprise architecture. It's not an instead of - I don't think it's an either-or. It's one way of doing enterprise architecture. Perhaps the hostility or the problem between them is SOA is one of those things that makes an awful lot of sense, has a lot of talk about it right now, and in terms of the technology hype curve, it's really going up right now. But it means different things to different people.

We had some very good presentations at our conference in Austin last month where people would give examples of people saying, "I want to buy myself an SOA." It's a buzzword and when you look at what it means, it's one way of doing architecture. It's service-oriented architecture, as opposed to object-oriented. It's a tool in the EA armory for doing what they need to do. Where I think it's most exciting is that it really does lay right into the concept I was talking about of boundaryless-ness and the need for systems to be interoperable not just within enterprise, but between enterprises. I think that's where adopting a service-oriented approach to your architecture really does help achieve that boundaryless-ness rather than the traditional way.

The question was asked at our conference whether it was a fad or here to stay. And there was definitely a consensus among the panel that it is here to stay, but what it means and what it will end up achieving - its effect - is something only time would tell.

Lawson: There are those who say SOA is just the next evolution of object-oriented programming. Do you agree?
Nunn: To me, I got excited about SOA being more than the next evolution of object-oriented with a particular book I read, "The Mashup Corporation." It gives a case study of an imaginary business. And it's about how this imaginary business transforms its organization through SOA and implementing SOA. It's a short and easy read, but it's a good book written by some good people. The case study is about a business that makes, among other things, popcorn machines for the home and other similar home appliances. Somebody in the organization comes across with the idea of personalizing them: putting stickers or decals on these machines so that, for example, you can get one that has your favorite football team or basketball team on it. It's just an idea. But before they know it, somebody does a quick hack-up of what it might look like and orders start coming in for it - even though it's not for sale. So the organization is forced to deal with this thing that's not part of their business but that people want and before they know it, they're completely turning their organization around to provide services.

After I read that, I started to believe that SOA is more exciting than the next evolution of object-oriented.

Lawson: Some in SOA say it's THE way to do enterprise architecture. Do you disagree?
Nunn: I disagree that it's the only way. I'd be inclined to believe it's the best way. But I don't think it's the only way. There's certainly not a choice to be made between the two. Even if fans of SOA say it's the way to do enterprise architecture, it's still positing enterprise architecture as the real discipline that needs to happen, the real approach that needs to happen, and SOA is one way to do that. It's certainly the one that's gathering a lot of fans. Certainly the events we've run that have SOA as a theme have been some of the highest attended.

Who's to say there isn't a new way of doing enterprise architecture that's just around the corner that we don't see yet. It's certainly climbing up that hype curve rapidly right now. We are seeing examples of early implementations of SOA - there are some examples, case studies out there, that we've heard about at our conferences, but there are still an awful lot of organizations not ready to share what they've learned, both good and bad, with the world.