Top blog postings in 2005

Illustrating the lasting value of what you read here (that's the gloss I'm putting on it, anyway) this year's ten most popular postings include four from 2004 and one hardy perennial from 2003. Ranked in order of popularity (with last year's position shown in square parantheses), they are:

1. J2EE: no longer required [1] (Nov 18th, 2004) The posting that got us slashdotted. There was a renewed burst of traffic this month when Slashdot resurrected the debate. [7 comments]
2. All about ESB [2] (Jul 16th, 2003) A compendium of links to articles about ESB. Its enormous continuing popularity just goes to show the huge interest in this class of product, in spite of my best efforts (see items 4 and 9 below) [1 comment].
3. Objects vs services [-] (Jan 27th, 2005) Why SOA will challenge the classic view of how objects, components and services are each deployed. [3 comments]
4. End of the road for ESB [6] (Nov 17th, 2004) My prediction that everyone would have lost interest in ESB by now. Maybe next year ... [5 comments]
5. Avalon: Microsoft's microchannel [7] (Jun 18th, 2004) Here's one prediction that does seem to have started to come true: "In ten years time, when applications run in rich browser clients, Windows will have settled into its legacy platform niche ..." [3 comments]
6. Why Oracle bought Oblix [-] (Mar 30th, 2005) Fulfilling some more of our predictions, we look at how the acquisition adds to Oracle's SOA product strategy. [2 comments]
7. Today's top ESB choices [10] (Jul 23rd, 2004) Listing the top seven vendors we found when compiling a report on independent ESB vendors. [2 comments]
8. J2EE: the gloves are off [-] (Aug 2nd, 2005) Why the founding of a startup by leading Apache luminaries suggests rumors of J2EE's demise are not premature after all. [2 comments]
9. WS-Fabric [-] (Apr 29th, 2005) Examining different points of view in the debate between ESB and WS-Fabric. [4 comments]
10. Missing layers of SOA [-] (Mar 3rd, 2005) Mapping SOA to take into account the emerging importance of higher-level function such as registry, policy, governance, semantics and business process management. [6 comments]

I'd like to mention one other posting that fell just outside the top 10 but which I believe set one of the most important themes of the year:

• Making sense of AON (Jun 23rd, 2005) Examining the implications of Cisco's application oriented networking (AON) announcements. [5 comments]

I have other favorites but must press ahead with preparing some new posts. As I mentioned earlier this month, I have a backlog of stuff I want to start writing about. I think 2005 has been a year of marking time while a number of developments coalesce, both for me personally but also for SOA as a set of best practices. 2006 will be the year these developments begin to blossom.

posted by Phil Wainewright 6:55 PM (GMT) | comments | link