---
title: "Hansel and Gretel and the SOA Forest: Why is IT so Grimm?"
date: 2005-11-17T00:14:11Z
modified: 2005-11-17T00:14:11Z
permalink: "https://redmonk.com/jgovernor/hansel-and-gretel-and-the-soa-forest-why-is-it-so-grimm/"
type: post
status: publish
excerpt: ""
wpid: 402
categories:
  - Uncategorized
timestamp: 2005-11-17T00:14:11Z
tags:
  - Uncategorized
---

I said the community was smarter than me.

So, after my [posting yesterday](http://www.redmonk.com/jgovernor/archives/001101.html) on why choosing the granularity of your service is like Goldilocks eating the bears’ porridge, comes this little fairy tale of SOA, from a mega value reader. Unfortunately I can’t say who it is, \[Who is afraid of the big bad corporate comms department?\] but thanks anyway guy! Here it is:

> _Hansel and Gretel walk through the forest (a metaphor for the FUD distributed by enterprise software vendors). They come across a clearing (a marketing message that makes sense – something that happens sometimes in IT, albeit mostly by sheer luck). Inside the clearing is a small IT shop with a vendor at the doorway. The whole house is a model for IT efficiency – all data is moving seamlessly between rooms and the users are happy. A sign declares “ this efficiency is by the miracle of SOA and web services”. The lure of an efficient IT system is too much. Being invited by the vendor, Hansel and Gretel walk inside._
> 
> _Inside lurks the big bad integrator. Thinking they were being saved by SOA, they now face soaring IT costs. Starting with simple services, there are now countless consulting bills for service classification, service registry, ontologies of services and more. (Remember, you cannot “consult” without combining “con” and “insult”). Consultants walk around spewing out buzzword and acronym laden sentences combined with updates on their hourly billing. Hansel and Gretel become nervous._
> 
> _As a desperate last measure, they run up to the vendor and push him into the SOA acronym soup brewing over the fireplace. They run out the front door and follow a trail of common sense they left behind to get back to where they were before and now live happily ever after, realizing the real intent of SOA marketing is to sell more software. After all, if it doesn’t change, we can’t sell ._