This week I was at the Axway customer conference in Scottsdale, AZ, an extremely pleasant event in the sun. Axway merged with Cyclone Commerce at the beginning of this year, and the company now has a platform for B2B, application integration, BPM and BAM. The BAM solution does not need to be implemented as part of the BPM solution. In fact it uses agents, and can monitor both Axway and other applications. All the Axway software is configured with agents which just need to be turned on in order to monitor messaging, B2B communications, or processes.

While I must say that while I thoroughly enjoyed the wine tasting and dinner at Taliesin West, Frank Lloyd Wright’s School of Architecture (hey if I’m going to spend almost as much time in the air as I do on the ground these side benefits are greatly appreciated), and Wright’s genius and beautiful buildings are truly inspiring, I was also inspired by talking to the customers and hearing what they are struggling with.

One customer from an auto manufacturer is struggling with creating an easy way to do B2B with dealers around the world. Another is struggling with integrated data management for SOA. Yet another is concerned with reuse, and how to broker reuse across the organization. Interestingly, he was looking for a technical solution to a political problem. Now that would be some powerful software if only it were possible.
But the bottom line is that SOA success is a combination of software, process, and people, including organizational structures, rewards, and policies.

In other words, SOA success requires getting a bunch of stuff right. You can’t stop at the ESB or automated B2B transaction. (Well in fact you can, but you will achieve only a fraction of the potential benefits). As part of our SOA in Action initiative I’ve been spending time on the phone with our members, hearing their stories SOA stories. I’m thinking of doing a series of deep throat stories – the names of the innocent (and guilty) will remain anonymous – but we can all learn from them.

So if you want to talk – send me an email.

Posted by bethgb in SOA | Permalink | Comments (2)