Burton集团的分析师Anne Thomas Manes认为：“SOBA就是在未来能让各种东西结合在一起，并且使您能够使用这些共享的可复用服务组合出多种应用的系统。”JetBlue航空公司的应用设计师Tyrone Paige说，虽然他目前正忙着构建一个SOA，并使用微软和SOA Software的技术在建设一系列的应用服务，但他对SOBA并不熟悉。他说：“我们的路线图中考虑了复合式应用。但对我来说，SOBA听起来好像就是复合式应用改头换面后的产物。我们计划实施一些能够充分利用这些服务的商业流程。”
然而，厂商们似乎非常理解SOBA的概念，而且在某些情况下非常清楚它的实际内容。据Gartner的调查，目前全力推进SOBA的有4家大型厂商，它们是：SAP，利用其发展迅速的NetWeaver平台；Oracle，利用其Fusion平台；IBM Global Services，利用其面向服务的建模与设计（Services Oriented Modeling and Architecture）来帮助企业用户构建SOBA的建设蓝图；还有微软，他们目前正在利用一种称为Windows Communication Foundation（即过去的Indigo）的Web服务中间件来重新调整、组建其基础设施。微软的这种Web服务中间件将在2年后正式发布。
许多厂商正将赌注押在概念和实施方法上，例如Webify公司就推出了符合这一策略的SOBA Fabric和SOBA Suites软件。Fireman's Fund Insurance公司目前正在使用Webify的SOBA Fabric来创建一个服务目录。今天，该公司已经拥有一个简单的计费查询系统，而这正是该公司向支持复杂交易目标迈出的第一步。
Following on the heels of the service-oriented architecture, the service-oriented business application is generating the latest buzz in distributed computing. While distinguishing between SOA and SOBA isn't easy - since both terms are used to describe constructing application infrastructures from Web services - the idea is that SOBA can be deployed on top of SOA, or other infrastructure models. The term's creator positions SOBA as the ultimate incarnation of the client/server business application - ERP, CRM and others - that has become today's monolithic beast.
"A SOBA is a client/server application done right," says Charles Abrams, a Gartner research director, who coined the term more than two years ago. "It is a business application that is centered on Web services standards."
In Gartner's model, SOBA ranges from today's simple XML interfaces overlaid on a current application to a far more sophisticated application infrastructure that will evolve. Rudimentary SOBAs are legacy applications modified with a Web services interface based on Simple Object Access Protocol . SOBA variants on the horizon include: best-of-breed components for broad deployment in horizontal or vertical markets; modular corporate suites from vendors such as Oracle and SAP; and SOBAs constructed from multiple services developed internally within corporations, sold by vendors or built by system integrators and service providers.
"The idea is that down the road all this stuff magically starts working together, and at that point you have this ability to assemble application systems from these shared reusable services," says Anne Thomas Manes, an analyst with Burton Group. "Of course, that is the dream behind Web services in the first place."
(1).gif)
