Is a Mission Oriented Architecture (MOA) a better way to describe things than SOA?
- by Brian Langbecker
I might sound like a troll, but I would like to seriously understand this deeper. The place I work at has started to use the term MOA, versus SOA as we believe it drives more clarity and want to compare it to the true goals of SOA.
A Mission Oriented Architecture is an approach whereby an application is broken down into various business mission elements, with the database, file assets, batch and real time functionality all tightly coupled in terms of delivering that piece of the functionality. The mission allows the developers to focus on a specific piece of functionality to get it right, and to build it with the ability for that piece to scale as an independent entity within the overall application. By tightly coupling the data, file assets and business logic you achieve the goals of working on a very large problem in bite size pieces.
Some definitions of SOA mix it up with what is essentially a method call on a web service versus a true "service". As an architect, I have always found it fun getting everyone on the same page regarding SOA.
Is it better to call it a "mission" versus a "service"?