Making SOA work

Defining the concept, event MC Ivo Vegter explained: "SOA is not something tangible," noting it can essentially be described as a blueprint or architecture. Teresa Jones, senior research analyst for Butler Group, agreed, saying: "SOA is an architecture that enables and encourages the reuse of business logic."

Speakers and delegates concurred that the primary function of SOA is to provide business agility and flexibility, and said it should allow IT to respond to changing business processes and needs, quickly and effectively. Speaking during a panel discussion regarding the function of SOA, Alvin Paules, chief technology architect for SAP Africa, said: "SOA applied in a large business will allow it to react to business demands as if it were a small business".

UNDERSTANDING BUSINESS BETTER

Apart from business agility and flexibility, SOA - when implemented successfully - has a number of advantages for both business and IT. Providing examples, Neil Cave, senior consultant at Deloitte Consulting, said: "The nature of the implementation process helps both business and IT understand their business better. Mapping of processes gives insight into how the business does what it does."

Adding to this, Dr Giles Nelson, director of technology for Progress Software, said: "Services give insight into data, allowing for prediction of behaviour and complex event processing." In addition, SOA allows for code reusability, translating into reductions in cost and time spent on projects, he noted.

However, SOA is inherently complex and selecting the correct SOA tool is critical; the wrong tool can result in constraints and limitations defeating the purpose of SOA adoption, argued both Cave and Jones.

Jones described a successful platform vendor as having the following features:

* A good product with completeness of scope, a high degree of integration, scalability and performance as well as a commitment to ongoing improvement.
* A strong presence in the market place with strong internal representation and user community. In addition, a good knowledge of and experience in the micro industry.
* They must assist with the implementation and it must be done in consultancy with both business and IT.

She cited the top three software infrastructure requirements generically as message-oriented middleware, service orchestration, and service virtualisation. She adds, "These requirements may not map nicely to vendor offerings, but we believe that defining the real requirements is important rather than pinning labels on them."

ADOPTION

A report compiled by the Butler Group reviewing 14 vendors listed IBM, Oracle and Tibco as tops with regards to SOA implementation tools. Jones explains that research had shown over the past year that there has been no significant growth in the number of companies adopting SOA.

This is attributed, she says, mainly to a lack of knowledge about SOA and lack of budget for its implementation. Other reasons include no visible, recognised benefits; the immaturity of SOA technology; and insufficient industry experience.

Looking at the adoption rates of SOA in South Africa, it was found that 11% of the companies surveyed had deployed a live SOA service and 13% had built trial services. 39% of the companies were evaluating the feasibility of implementing SOA while 4% has evaluated and then rejected the idea. The remaining 33% had not yet investigated the option at all. Speakers agreed that SOA can be costly to implement, especially if going for a `rip and replace` approach. If adopting a more moderate approach, where legacy applications are going to be incorporated, the challenge is how to most effectively incorporate the correct applications.

Cave says that when determining if your business is ready to implement SOA, the best approach is to assess the organisation`s maturity and various aspects of its architecture. These aspects include business, technology, data and solutions architectures. "This will tell you whether the company needs SOA."

SUCCESSFUL IMPLEMENTATION

The following elements to consider when implementing a successful SOA repeatedly came to the fore:

* Adoption of SOA needs to be business-driven and IT-led. The services must map back to a business activity or function.
* It is important to have a deep understanding of how SOA will affect all aspects of the IT and business environment.
* There must be a means of assessing where the business is now, where it needs to be, and how to get there.
* As far as possible, the SOA should be standards-based, allowing for easy integration and adaptability through a homogenous system.
* For SOA to fulfil the businesses needs, it is essential that business and IT talk the same language when discussing what functionality is needed.
* Close collaboration throughout the implementation process will facilitate this and ensure resources, such as time and money, are not wasted.
* Finally, a centre of excellence (COE) is essential, said Luc Vogeleer, EMEA SOA competency manager for HP Sophia Antipolis, France.

Vogeleer describes a COE as a central source that should comprise key individuals from both business and IT and that is established to focus your business to achieve the following objectives:

* Organise and govern, build and manage reusable components and infrastructure in a service-oriented architecture
* Establish enterprise SOA best practices, standards, procedures and governance
* Enable your business to respond flexibly, consistently, to change.

In addition, Vogeleer believes that a COE will benefit a business in a number of ways. This includes promoting a standardised service-oriented infrastructure, development methods and operational procedures. It allows for increased business agility as well as reduces risk, complexity, redundancy and support complexity.

It enables re-use and therefore reduces cost and time spent. Finally it ensures that the businesses show one face to its customers.

Nelson added: "SOA is a journey; getting started is key. Don`t try and change the world; pick a project and use principles and standards-based technology. Finally, adopt the Nike approach and `just do it`."