SOA infrastructure (for the Cloud) vs. traditional IT architecture

SOA infrastructure (for the Cloud) vs. traditional IT architecture

There's a great problem emerging from the incompatibility between traditional IT infrastructures and the newest tools that are being offered to businesses in the form of SOA's (Service Oriented Architectures). Traditional IT infrastructures are typically not designed in accordance with any far reaching goals or proposed future technological advancements. Additionally, most of these systems also lack scalability and may also possess a user interface that is less than ideal. High maintenance and operating costs are also intimately associated with traditional IT architectures, making them unruly and in some cases, utterly inflexible. When you combine all of this with the fact that a run-of-the-mill traditional IT setup will often feature an exceedingly complex architecture (mostly due to the fact that no long term planning went into its design), you have a system that is literally one step away from being broken.

By contrast, the average SOA is extremely flexible and is usually designed to be able to greatly simplify the underlying structure of a business' IT department. Why / how is SOA superior in this regard? First off, most Service Oriented Architecture is designed to be passive, in other words, its interaction with the infrastructure it inhabits is somewhat limited. If SOA were a person, they would be the type that always did their job right and kept to their own business; most SOA is not designed to influence the function(s) of the larger system. A highly modularized design is also a staple of most SOA's. This design facet allows them to be quickly restructured for different purposes (logic flows) should the need for such a thing arise. Additionally, a SOA exists on top of or around the edges of an IT infrastructure; it can be easily and painlessly 'unplugged' from the larger system and repositioned somewhere else without jeopardizing the stability or security of the larger infrastructure.

Modern trends in computing seem to be pushing toward the development of more user customizable infrastructures; whereupon any knowledgeable IT manager can repurpose any and all existing elements without much effort. This of course flies in the face of the traditional IT model, which relies heavily on constant software upgrades, patches and hardware additions. What makes the concept of SOA infrastructures for cloud computing such an interesting proposition is the possibility of being able to:

• Supercharge your system's flexibility to perform tasks via SOA modules - If there's one area where cloud computing soars high above the competition it would have to be flexibility. When you couple this with the flexibility offered via modularized Service Oriented Architectures, you have a match made in heaven.
• Keep your infrastructure neatly organized - Those that have experience in servicing traditional IT infrastructures are aware of the fact that they are often organizational nightmares. This is yet another area where cloud computing is clearly superior; most cloud architectures have to be organized in order to function properly.
• Instantly requisition new computing resources to a SOA in event that it reaches an overdraft in terms of capacity - Unlike the processes involved in applying additional resources in a traditional IT setup (which cloud computing does automatically via an elastic and highly scalable infrastructure), SOA in the cloud will be able to instantly increase any number of attributes which will help it retain functionality in the event of high volume / traffic periods of operation.
• Quickly and cleanly integrate newly acquired SOA's into your existing infrastructure without compromising the integrity of the entire system - It can be extremely frustrating to try to sort through the typical 'rats nest' that is a traditional IT infrastructure. Cloud computing, with its highly organized systems, makes it easy to add additional components to your infrastructure with virtually no threat of oncoming instability or downtime to speak of.
• Create or partition space for a VM / VServer where your SOA(s) can reside - If you're extremely cautious about what types of components that you feel comfortable adding to your infrastructure, you could always create an entirely new virtual server to house these additional components so that their interaction with the entire system is somewhat limited or controlled. This is yet another benefit offered by cloud computing that cannot be replicated by a traditional IT infrastructure; that is, unless you want to invest an extremely large amount of money to do so, which in the end would not be cost effective.

Simply put, the benefits of implementing a SOA within a cloud infrastructure are numerous and clearly outweigh the difficulties that one might experience in trying to do the same with a traditional IT infrastructure. The 'plug and play' design that most SOA implement is perfectly suited to the elastic and scalable nature of cloud computing; they compliment each others strengths extremely well. Those businesses that are serious about increasing their capabilities and trimming the costs associated with the operation of their IT department would do well to explore what the cloud has to offer.