Thursday 29 April 2010

Service Portfolio Planning and Architecture for Cloud Services

The concept that Services are provided ‘somewhere in the cloud’ has always been central to our vision of SOA and we often used the cloud metaphor to illustrate this. Some 15 years ago in our early CBD research at Texas Instruments Software we presented the notion of application solutions assembled from a ‘cloud of services’ though this was positioned more as a way to achieve technology independence as the notions of a public infrastructure provided in the cloud were not well developed then.

The arrival of Web Services at the turn of the millennium provided a standardized mechanism by which location independence could be added and at that time we began presenting ideas like this, entitled "Does it matter where Services are Located?" - though in 2001 we will admit the audience was often more than slightly skeptical about the idea!

Does it matter where Services are Located?


Whilst there is now a high level of convergance throughout the industry on classification of Cloud Services as Software as a Service (SaaS) or Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), as concepts such as Public, Private or Community Clouds, these generalized terms can be a bit misleading and vague when it comes to producing a more exact model of the Service Architecture. What exactly is the type of capability being offered by a Service? Who exactly is playing what role in the Service Supply Chain?

So, in the free report I have published in our CBDI Journal this month, I set out to show how our CBDI-SAE approach can be used and extended to architect for Cloud Services. The current guidance has been extended with new and refined classification systems, diagrams, policy types and techniques designed to promote visibility and good governance over Service Portfolio Planning activities and Cloud Services provisioning.  (see also the slideshare following the 'read more...')