Putting the Serve in Server

Because Web services are built with standardized languages and connected via the Internet, we take it for granted that, for instance, we’ll be able to integrate a Twitter feed and a separate blogging platform into our Web site. That interoperability allows the “federalized” view. In the same way, SOA can integrate Web services and company IT services to facilitate business processes across the enterprise.

But though it may seem like a shortcut to SOA, Sharma warns against the rampant adoption of Web services. “When I go into companies and hear they have 100 or more Web services up and running, I cringe a bit,” he says. “It tells me that symptomatically the organization has likely done an Access-like implementation of what should instead be a more comprehensive, coordinated online transaction processing system.”

Mark Richards, a director and senior solutions architect for Collaborative Consulting, LLC, in Boston who presented on SOA issues at a recent Minneapolis conference, says Web services “are just one of many possible implementations of SOA, and don’t represent a coordinated, comprehensive architecture or paradigm.”

Making the Business Case

Richards says SOA doesn’t make sense for all organizations, but it does have particular benefit in two situations: when economies of scale can be realized from SOA’s use or in environments that experience frequent change, which places a premium on the reusable elements of SOA.

Companies that have multiple product lines with commonalities in processing requirements for back-end systems can benefit from service-oriented architecture, Richards says. For example, an insurance company might have quoting systems for auto, home, life, boat, and other lines of insurance, with each of those systems having some overlap. Making a process or policy change in 10 separate systems would take considerable time; with SOA, a change can be made in one place that affects or updates all 10 systems simultaneously. In addition, IT will have saved money by integrating application servers, directory systems, portals, and mainframe applications as well as reusing software across business functions.

Sharma believes SOA’s biggest business benefit comes in “time to market” for new business services or applications by increasing interoperability between disparate systems. “It improves how quickly an organization can bring a new business capability into the enterprise,” he says.

Say a company wanted to add the ability for salespeople to place orders on a mobile device. If the system employed SOA, it would support a range of devices, in the same way you can place an order with Amazon.com via your computer or your Blackberry. SOA’s success also can be measured by how many point-to-point systems and data islands—data that is locked in departments due to incompatible systems—it reduces, as well as by how much of the domain knowledge within business units it turns into automated work flows.