Bashing EAI

A bit of EAI bashing going on these days. I suspect a lot of people, myself included, who have successfully implemented an EAI style of architecture are probably scratching their heads going hmm what did I do so wrong? Answer: nothing.

SOA is the latest new kid on the block (actually Cloud Computing is but we are not going there) so the natural tendency is to bash everything that came before it. The practice of EAI had and does contain a ton of good architectural principles. Those are being thrown out and replaced with the notion that EAI and it's evolution the ESB style of architecture are all about products and not architecture. It's simply not true.

Don't get me wrong, SOA is a very good thing. My issue is the stark contrast being drawn between it and EAI. Yes there are differences but they share more in common that is being explained by the bashers. Abstraction, loose coupling, common data types, composibility, discovery and yes even standards all existed in the EAI world.

EAI, ESB's, SOA and even Cloud Computing all have their place in the modern enterprise. Understand your architecture which means what works and what doesn't, evolve where needed but don't throw your successful practices out with the bath water because of the latest buzz.