Everware-CBDi Industry Analysis Report "In Search of a Common SOA Language": What is a Reference Model?

A few days ago, the January 2007 version of the CBDi journal dropped into my email inbox. This issue analyzed the Reference Model Landscape - including architectures, profiles and meta-models.

Let me be clear, the article does a good job of comparing various efforts that purport to be a reference model for SOA. There are a few key points of analysis with which I disagree. While I have a few moments of time over the next few days, I'd like to share my thoughts on these points of disagreement.

The SOA Reference Model is not a Reference Architecture

It was likely necessary to extend the boundary of analysis to reference architectures and meta-models so to identify enough efforts for a broad comparison. However,

A reference model is an abstract framework for understanding significant relationships among the entities of some environment. A reference model enables the development of specific reference (or concrete) architectures

The report posits that "the OASIS model, while adopted as a standard, is a rather fuzzy 'reference architecture' with many of the concepts deemed necessary by the authors of this article left clear or undefined."

Attempting to compare the relative merits of reference model with reference architectures is like trying to compare apples and carrots. With this analogy, we can compare the qualities of fruit vs. vegetables or the specific characteristics each food item. However, building a comparison of the relative strengths and weakness of each does not consider when the differences are intentional and appropriate.