The Most Important Service-Oriented Antipatterns

Service-oriented architecture (SOA) is now the most popular software engineering concept. Software related antipatterns - commonly used seemingly good but in fac- t wrong solutions - can have adverse consequences of varying importance. It implies that the use of an antipattern can and should be viewed as a risky event. It follows that some principles of risk management can be used. We propose a method based on slightly simplified procedures of risk management and assessment. Using the tool we give a short list of the most risky antipatterns, i.e. antipatterns occurring very often and having crucial consequences. We discuss these crucial SOA-related antipatterns: No Legacy (development from scratch), Standardization Paralysis, Business Process for Ever (Full Automation), Sand Pile (too fine grained services), On-Line Only (No Batch Systems). The discussion of antipatterns is based on a long- term experience with service-oriented and service-oriented like (e.g. process control) systems and on the analysis of practice.