SOA - Entry point

Post date: Mar 28, 2012 8:11:16 PM

Companies are looking forward to adopt SOA. The claims which were made, assurance which was given had an impact but companies are looking for a way to enter in to SOA.

Whether they are ready for it or not? Whether there is a requirement for SOA or not?

What are entry points to SOA?

I would like to quickly put some brief understanding of mine on entry points to SOA. There can be various entry points to SOA adoption but I would like to mention three important here: People, Process, Information.

People

Collaboration among people (employees, partners and customers for faster information flow and better collaboration. This can be one of the entry point where there is a great need for collaboration among people involved in the business. There are lots of advantages of people collaboration and uninterrupted information flow. Reduced time to market, reduced time to complete business processes and reduced operational cost.

Process

There may be process which are missing, incomplete or not integrated requiring manual process. There may be a situation where there are serious gaps in the system and no process exists. SOA approach can provide business process centric approach to solve business problems through IT. This can be another entry point.

Information

Sharing of information among various people and operations is critical for business and customers. SOA can provide an integrated environment and eco-system to improve information flow and availability of information at any place from other part of the system. This can be another entry point for SOA adoption.

There are other entry points which are technical or secondary:-

Reuse

SOA promotes reuse of services. Capabilities in one corner of a business can be used by another department reducing cost and time to market.

Connectivity

Connecting infrastructure of an organization can also be one of the entry point for SOA adoption. Disconnected, silo systems are wastage of companies capability and investment. SOA can solve this problem.