How is SOA being received out in the trenches? A couple of recent conferences have brought forth both good news and bad news about the state of acceptance of SOA by technology professionals.
Okay, let's get the bad news out of the way first. A recent survey out of Australia finds that about 70 percent of respondents prefer to customize existing applications over taking on an SOA or even Web services project.
What's the problem here? Insufficient staff resources and lack of available skill sets are the main barriers. But read between the lines, and there seems to be a matter of will as well. Overall, the survey of 80 senior IT executives, conducted by InterSystems at a Gartner event, found "there is no single method of connecting to or extending IT applications that most respondents were confident they could quickly and cost effectively use." The report added that "when it comes to Web services, service-oriented architectures, workflow functions and business process automation, executing within a six-month period and doing so cost-effectively, is beyond the capability of most organizations." Support from management -- or lack thereof -- is likely to play prominently here.
Now, some good news. ComputerWorld reported a number of positive reports around actual working SOA implementations coming out presentations at BEAWorld. For starters, Shaygan Kheradpir, CIO at Verizon Communications said SOA has eliminated the communications barrier between the telecom's IT department and the business side of the house.
And now, from the same article, a really big ROI story. At Aflac, the insurance carrier is running a Web service that allows 11,000 insurance agents to access different types of data, so it doesn’t have to print and mail such data. Kurt Anderson, administrator of the myAflac portal, says the Aflac SOA application cost $600,000 to build, but will result in savings of more than $3.2 million annually.
Details are sketchy on exactly what went into the SOAs within these organizations, but there's no doubt these efforts received a lot of support from the upper ranks of management. The InterSystems survey points to potential sticking points that may make it difficult to make SOA live up to its promise. Namely, IT and development departments are stretched to their limits with cascading -- and often conflicting -- demands from the business side, and often have to turn to what works and can quickly be put in place. SOA is not an overnight project, but a long-term journey that may not show immediate ROI. Plus, additional investments will need to be made in training and skills development; not to mention user education. Lots of user education.
We're reaching the stage where we're going to start hearing lots more success stories (and not-so-successful efforts as well), and these will be reported in this blog. And, importantly, we'll be seeking to identify the common denominators that make SOA work.
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