Giving Sense to SOA with Antipatterns

Researchers from IBM's developerWorks created a guide that identifies obstacles to the realization of an SOA strategy. Use these "anti-patterns" to avoid common SOA pitfalls.

The researchers use the term "antipatterns" to describe practices that consultants, integrators, designers, and programmers should avoid. This term stands in direct contrast to "patterns," which describe common and replicable best practices for software design. Some of the identified antipatterns for SOA implementations include:

• Blob: "A large class with too many attributes and is the 'heart' of the system."
• Wolf ticket: "A technology that claims openness, but has no conformance standard test."
• Golden hammer: "Forcing everything to fit a selected tool."

The guide further describes the use of antipatterns in SOA implementation projects. It is available on the IBM developerWorks Web site