Does the Human Body reflect a SOA Architecture?

The human body is a marvel of evolution, with its intricate systems working together seamlessly to support our daily lives. From the protective skin that shields from potential harm to the interconnected nervous system that communicates vital information throughout the body.? Our bodies – like other species, rely on real-time inputs and communications as a living organism responds to the environment and events.? The architecture of the organism plays a crucial role in its existence and future. ?Is it capable of surviving its environment?? The magic hidden inside any organism reveals an interconnected system of cells and components that evolve and change.? Organisms learn and adjust to the environment, responds and reacts, such as when we touch something cold or hot, wet or dry.? ?

At the center of it all is the brain - a complex organ responsible for processing information, storing memories, and guiding our actions both consciously and unconsciously. The brain does not talk, see, or hear. It has structured interfaces. Organs like the heart, lungs, stomach, and liver perform specialized functions essential for our survival, while muscles and skeletons provide us with mobility and structure. Each cell has the DNA to define its characteristics and purpose. Blood vessels nourish our cells with essential nutrients, and connected tissues ensure everything stays in place. The human body, in my thinking, can serve as an invaluable muse for understanding how interconnected decentralized and disparate systems can work harmoniously towards a common goal without hardwiring, forced methods or transformation losing the nuance and benefits of why things may be different or varied for good reason.?

The human body, I assert, reflects a service-oriented architecture (SOA) enabling functional specialization loosely connected by messaging.? The segregation of work (specialization) reflects how circumstances – like an event or feeling arises.? ?Look at how our bodies respond to the world around us like when we are hungry or thirsty or sad or happy.? The signals and responses are divided into conscious and unconscious delegation, communication, consistency, performance, flexibility, speed, and structured responses. Best practices for developing today’s computer applications strongly recommend implementing SOA. Just like a USB device that can be easily plugged into most computers, we aim for seamless connectivity, avoiding technical intricacies that different versions may introduce. The plug-and-play definitions and drivers take care of all the details for us. Logical tasks (get, put, delete) are structured and delegated to shield us from the complexity of any USB device.

Educational providers play a pivotal role in facilitating a learner’s journey by offering validation of effort, achievements and skills acquired through various learning paths they facilitate. It is when learners and learning cross boundaries inhibiting familiarity, information access is sought, such as requesting the educational structure, methods, outputs, record of achievements or sharing the outcomes or measures to determine progress or alerts or comparability.?

Back in 1992, the industry began exchanging SPEEDY transcripts when learners anticipated transitioning across boundaries.? Thirty-two years is a long time in our lifespan, but a short time in our evolution.? Request, fulfillment and acknowledgement between stakeholders was designed as a batch set of operations.? There were good reasons for batch.? But the design and assumptions that led to batch methods – have also contributed to why adoption and scale has been frustrating the ecosystem as it seeks alternative ways of addressing how best to support the learning journey and learning portability crossing boundaries - supported by technology.?

Traditional standalone educational models are increasingly being replaced by collaborative platforms that promote a holistic, student-centric approach. This shift emphasizes how key events such as enrollment, completion, dropouts, progress checks, assessments, or transfers go beyond standalone limitations and encourage collective efforts across stakeholder processes. Without connectivity, we have to substitute other actions stalled by lack of access to secure datasets consumed with protection and control.

So much like an organism relies on the interconnectivity, communications and structure, an ecosystem-wide framework could allow disparate applications (functions) anywhere in the system to publish and subscribe to events across a shared network system, akin to the nervous system spread inside our bodies and out of sight. Our bodies illustrate how a loosely coupled messaging interface, supporting structured messages, can be an improvement to track, avoid delays, syndicate data, reduce duplication and improve the ability to respond faster than hard coded – point to point models that can be overlayed.? ?