SOA == WS?

My colleague Mårten just replied to Jimmy Nilssons question regarding whether SOA == WS. As Mårten, I think that equation is not necessarily true, possibly not even desirable.

I view services as a well designed (from both a business and technical standpoint) interface to perform a function. This is not bound to a particular technology (such as WS-*).  In fact, I think the whole WS-* mess in many cases is holding back the possibilities of building a working SOA due to its complexity. I’m certainly a part of the Loyal WS-Opposition and prefer to use the strengths of each protocol rather than adding a leaky layer on top. In my world, using HTTP (preferably REST like) and a MOM (like ActiveMQ or WebSphere MQ) will suffice for building a very strong and flexible backbone to enable SOA.

But, the hard part of building a SOA is not the technical details (that’s been solved for years), it’s finding a appropriate services based on the business requirements. The experience in this area is far less advanced.