Semantics & SOA - part 1 "Survey"

Over the next month we are going to take an in depth view of how Semantic Integration is being applied to SOA. The notion that the Semantic Web and SOA might be linked began to emerge in 2005 & 2006. Since then it's been gaining some momentum. Keep in mind though that "Semantic Integration" & "Semantic IT" do not by their nature narrowly confine themselves to SOA or the Web. However, Services Oriented Architecture is a natural, ready-made proving ground for what we're describing on this Blog.

This first post reviews some interesting resources on the web that illustrate the genesis and evolution of the combination of Semantics and SOA.

Conceptual Framework:

• Bringing Semantics to Service-Oriented Architecture:Ontology-based Mediation for eGovernment

This is an excellent briefing which lays out basic concepts and potential applications for SOA, presented by the Chief Scientist at Top Braid, a semantic web technology provider.

• Managing SOA Semantics Using Ontologies and Supporting W3C Standards..."Web 3.0?"

A concise overview from the Zapthink crew.

• Semantic service oriented architecture

The wikipedia take, or one of them anyway...

Semantic coupling

An excellent assessment of why many SOA efforts are falling short...
excerpt "Unfortunately, syntactic coupling is the easy part. Semantic coupling is the harder part of the problem, and SOA does little or nothing to address this challenging issue. Semantic coupling refers to the behavioral dependencies between components or services. There’s actual meaning to the interaction between a consumer and a service."
We will be taking a much closer look at this issue soon...

Interesting Applications:

• Semantic SOA to Promote Integration of Heterogeneous B2B Services
• The Axiom Project (we will look at this further soon)
• SAIC Building Semantic SOA
• Semantic Interoperability - Revelytix
  

More links Courtesy of Mills Davis:

• Smartlogic - Semantic Middleware
• Fighting Fraud with Semantic Technology
• Business Semantics, Enterprise Architecture & Data Architecture
  

In our next post we will try to outline the architectural imperative for using "Semantic SOA."


copyright 2008, Semantech Inc.