Visibility and Control in a Service Oriented Architecture

I would like to focus on the Windows Azure Platform which is Microsoft’s Platform as a Service offering. I want to do this for two reasons. First, at the present time I am working for Microsoft (what can I say) and it is my job to research and describe their technologies. Second, I think there is a lot of confusion in the industry with respect to exactly what the Windows Azure Platform is all about. This confusion exists because the Windows Azure Platform is often described at too high a level or at too low a level. In my opinion it does not matter whether you are a business person or a technologist, in order to understand the Windows Azure Platform you must come in at just the right level. Services alone do not constitute a service-oriented architecture (SOA). Capabilities must be acquired that provide visibility and control into service development and service execution. Without these capabilities, IT offerings will become fragile as the number of services in the data center grows. This article investigates capabilities that provide visibility and control for the services that make up a SOA.