Borjan Čače
Borjan has worked in IT since 1972 in a variety of roles (see LinkedIn). He is also a husband, father and grandfather. His interests include swimming, walking in nature, and spending time on or near the Adriatic Sea in Croatia.
Software development has always been his favorite occupation, especially after discovering Smalltalk in 1990. Since retiring from IT architecture consultancy, his professional focus has been the development and maintenance of SoaScape.
Borjan has written two articles for the Enterprise Architecture Professional Journal (EAPJ) that explore the ideas behind SoaScape:
- “Application Landscape Views and SOA” and
- “Accurate Insights into the Runtime Topology of Application Landscapes”
SoaScape
The idea for SoaScape emerged in 2009, and the first functional prototype — using real application‑landscape data — was completed in 2012. The initial version was an extension to the functionality of the so-called “Web Service Registries/Repositories” and was mainly focused on 3D visualizations. A short demonstration of these early experiments is available on YouTube. After working with a leading service registry product, the complexity and lack of conceptual clarity became apparent. Influenced by the Views and Beyond approach (SEI) and aiming to view web service registration from the component‑and‑connector perspective, Borjan decided to develop a new product from scratch.
The following principles guided the development:
- Interconnection data is gathered directly from intermediary components — such as API gateways and message brokers — to minimize the administrative effort of keeping information current.
- The data model reflects established architectural concepts and patterns and technology standards.
- The user interface is intuitive and highly responsive.
- The product supports a wide range of user concerns – from strategic planning to operational needs – by presenting information at multiple levels of abstraction.
- The implementation is simple, with almost no technical footprint in the organization.
The original “SoaScape Reconciler” was implemented in C++. In 2016, a new version written in C# was released. Later, the SoaBrowser2 application and the SoaScapeWeb server component were added.
Since 2013, the product has been used by a single customer. An initial attempt to bring it to the market in 2014 was unsuccessful. In 2026, Borjan is preparing a renewed effort.