Real quick, I came across this interesting post discussing the issues around SOA and virtualization "convergence". In summary, Todd is noting that the world of the software infrastructure surrounding SOA is changing rapidly in response to the highly dynamic nature of Web Services infrastructure. I responded with the following comment:

I’m facinated by this concept of the coupling between software (especially web services) and infrastructure (including servers, networks and storage). In fact, Cassatt has done a tremendous amount of thinking around how Service Level Automation and service oriented infrastructure applies to web services, especially in the changing world of the software infrastructure used to host those services. (The hardware evolution is also facinating, but is tangental to the conversation here.)
Dynamically changing the number of physical, virtual or even application servers hosting the service certainly addresses the sticky performance issues surrounding web services, but it does nothing to address the *efficiency* issues, especially with regards to how resources can be pooled to meet the demand of a number of applications and services at the same time. Think “how can I deliver the required service levels for my applications and services using the minimum resources required to do so”.
This is what I am addressing on my blog. I hope you will check it out and comment at will on what you see there. I’m glad to see such interesting discussion about service oriented infrastructure. It is certainly a problem that will be addressed dramatically in the next 5-10 years.