Hi Jim,
Dan isn't there a difference between a Event-Driven and a Service Oriented
architecture?
I think the answer is the architects "It depends". If you can tell me what
you personally have defined Service Oriented Architecture to mean, and then
do the same with Event-Driven, perhaps I can spot the differences. I don't
want to sound trite, so appologies if this sounds like a cop-out. My point
is that "service oriented" is one of those Gartneresque terms that doesn't
mean anything right now, and Event-Driven was one of the long-ago
Gartnerisms that resulted in a number of different meanings.
In general, however if you consider event driven as being something you can
rely on, a-la tibco et. al, that helps you manage distributed components
over a wide area, then there are aspects in the SO writings that touch in
these areas. I heard someone the other day wondering whether the end-game
for the SO technology stacks was to commoditize TIB - so I know I'm not
the only one who sees the parallels.
In the end, architecture turns out to be a life's learning process as
applied to software structure. I hesitate to recommend any specific
"reference" architectures at my advanced age since there is a different
architect somewhere with an as-good approach/solution to a set of problems.
I hope this helps - I know it wasn't the clear answer you seek.
Dan Rogers
Microsoft Corporation
