What draws me to the SOA paradigm is its essential and inherent harmony, its rhythm, if you will. The concept of Business functions being provided as a set of loosely coupled, policy driven services that are possibly threaded together though an choreography layer agnostic to the implementation mechanism, intrinsically promotes an open architecture. SOA provides a perfect balance in a world where the last word has not yet been said in this ensuing tug of war between open sources and vendor supported product suites. While the concept itself is not so much an of invention, (some may remember that e-services is an old word from the days of e-speak) using the ubiquitous HTTP as the transport for SOAP messages was a stroke of genius as it brought in its wake technology independence between collaborators in the game of providing and consuming services. The WS-* standards are today extending the boundaries of the reach of technology in a secure way. If the natural evolution of technology has its way, soon devices to individuals to organization shall be entities in an service oriented eco-system that is truly open and market driven. However for that to happen stronger domain specific syntax has to evolve for service definitions and access mechanisms, e.g. if two service providers provide stock quotes, why should the conversation vocabulary differ?
Nature has itself shown that evolution prefers not just the strongest but those that collaborate the best, wild dogs, for instance, are more feared predators than the King of Jungle. The success stories of bees and ants stem from their respective well organized social structures and communication mechanism. However Nature is not about individual species anyway, for no one species could possibly contributed singly to the survival of Life itself on our planet, had it not been for underlying and unifying food chain, that links all life from the algae to the top predators of the current times - us. Life has evolved itself as a whole such that the photosynthetic capacity of the plants reach all that lives here through the food chain, and we give it all back someday, dust to dust, ashes to ashes. A unifying connection that is wired into the collective gene pool on earth. Life is undoubtedly the best collaboration and knowledge management system this world has ever seen. And it is constantly innovating. Well, He is happiest who hath power to gather wisdom from a flower. (Wordsworth)
Planets and Galaxies as much as the sub-atomic entities inside an Hydrogen atom are similarly linked through Strings of forces that Newton and Einstein helped us catch a glimpse of and subsequent generations of geniuses have been progessively unrevealing. Each Supernova spews out "star-stuff" (in Carl Sagan's word) that coagulates into newer galaxies and star systems within which it is conceivable that Life may again get a foothold somewhere and evolve anew into a many splendoured reality like the one we live within. Yet in the midst of these boundless possibilities the unity (or perhaps the uniformity in uncertainty) of the behaviour of matter (wave?), the forces strong and weak that plays on it as Hariprasad Chaurasia on his magical flute, are perhaps the only constant theme, at least in this manifestation of creation. An unity that weaves individual quanta of matter into the tapestry that we call our Universe.
The big bang that started it all has been likened often to a step in the timeless dance of Nataraj and his eternal consort Shakti. For all creation and indeed the all powerful Ma Kali herself are projection of the transcendental Unifying substratum that we call Shiva, Brahman or even our own atman thereby encapsulating the unfathomable infinite within the apparent finite. (Life of Pi anyone?)
Tat tvam Asi. (Thou art That)
So how does one fathom the unfathomable? Well, people claim that all it takes is a heartfelt cry to Hari, that captivating blue hued lad who would steal your heart as soon as you lay your eyes on him. People claim his plays his flute well and that it speaks the tougue of eternal love and bliss, of the unity and harmony that vibrates through all creation as Aum. People claim he plays often and beckons all to rejoice in the soothing and enlightening melody. People claim that he is the one true guide and that only his grace can set you free.
Yea, Krishna is my guide and refuge.
Sri Krishna Saranam Mamah.
