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A gility is the hallmark of any IT deployment. As competition gets cut-throat,
companies need to constantly innovate and offer new services with little lead
time. Today it is well-known that enterprise applications power an
organizations growth engines and bring in distinct competitive edge. Any
progressive enterprise invests heavily in IT, but just deploying a plethora of
applications cannot get you benefits. It is the IT architecture that creates a
computing eco-system that optimizes the assets, be it hardware or software.
Thus, in the IT eco-system, service oriented architecture (SOA) is assuming a
key position.
In the past, SOA has been the topic of great debates and discussions; some
called it hype. But in the last couple of years, when enterprises went in for a
second round of IT deployment, they looked at technologies that could deliver
maximum yield. Just like virtualization makes for blanket computing, SOA creates
a high degree of application agility where one is able to configure the kind of
service one wants to deliver. Actually, it cuts unnecessary fat and creates the
precise service that is needed. While SOA suffers from a commonly accepted
definition, the one common denominator that the tech world has accepted is: SOA
identifies services from the business process perspective, and makes these
services re-usable and deployable in similar environments.
A Closer Look
Going deeper still, SOA can be termed as a methodology or an approach in
managing divergent computing environments by using standards based re-usable
services. The idea here isdevelop once, use it many times. This naturally
brings in a high degree of flexibility. Also, since it is standards based, it is
highly homogenized across a heterogeneous environment. By this approach, SOA
de-couples the complexities out of the IT environment and makes it simple.
In a way, SOA satisfies the unique demands of the enterprise by transforming
the business processes, and hastens better fitment of IT with business. It is an
integration framework. For instance, in a survey conducted by AppLabs on the
adoption of SOA last year, of the total respondents, close to 20% swayed toward
internal IT integration, 5% toward new channels of the market, 5% said that SOA
would be used for the integration of third parties, and 70% said all of the
above. Clearly, those adopting SOA see the value that this framework brings to
their IT infrastructure.
The earliest adopter of SOA has been the BFSI segment. We get a sense of the
market when we look at a report from Springboard Research, which says that the
SOA market is expected to grow at a compounded annual rate of 49% from 2006 to
2009. While domestic adoption of SOA is still at the growing stage, the bigger
opportunity lies out there on the SOA services side. Experts say that SOA is set
to be on the agenda of many organizations throughout the next three years, with
the drivers being more alignment to business and delivering quality service.
Experts are firm in their opinion that SOA ushers in significant business
advantages. But to accrue full benefits, enterprises must have a blueprint of
integrating SOA-based processes into their IT environment. Despite benefits
there are certain management issues in SOA. Once an enterprise has decided to
adopt SOA, it needs to find a way out of the complicated maze of IT systems,
hardware, platforms, et al. Here is where an SOA blueprint will un-bundle the
complexity and create a robust and flexible IT infrastructure, which is on
demand and services-based.
Shrikanth G
Shrikanthg@cybermedia.co.in
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