Service-orientated architecture: reducing the cost of change (page 1 of 2)

In an environment where many software applications still reside on individual and highly-cumbersome legacy systems - how can IT staff hope to achieve the required agility from their systems?

Help is at hand in the form of Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA). Perhaps the most significant development in enterprise architecture since the dawn of the web, SOA will revolutionise IT over the next five years. How many times have similar promises been made?

The difference with SOA is that, for once, these lofty predictions seem justified. How many times have we been told that X technology is 'revolutionary? How often has that been the case? This time, though, it seems we have it right. Companies that fail to pursue a service-oriented IT strategy could be left behind by early adopters.

Defining SOA

So, what exactly is SOA? As with any nascent technology, opinions differ over its precise nature, but the essential concept is as follows. Since the earliest dawn of enterprise IT, computers have been used to automate individual business processes.

Their effect has been revolutionary, of course in terms of accelerating what were previously time-consuming and expensive tasks. What businesses have failed to achieve is to make these individual applications work together in a single, agile and cohesive manner.

By treating various business processes as individual 'services', SOA hopes to finally solve this thorny issue, succeeding where previous great hopes like object technology and remote procedure calls have fallen short.

The key point to bear in mind is that SOA is not software in itself, but a means to an end; a framework for structuring systems to encourage the sharing of data and applications. SOA enables systems to communicate in peer-to-peer terms.

It is this flexibility, this ability to adapt to changing business demands which characterises SOA. Technology must no longer conform to the rules of the IT department but to the demands of business.

SOA and the Grid

One of those emerging enterprise technologies where SOA looks set to make a real splash is grid computing. The ability to share applications across networks relies not only on the optimal software infrastructure - where SOA provides the framework - but also a more efficient command of enterprise resources than is typical in today's environment.

The point where grid computing and SOA converge will unlock the full potential of these symbiotic technologies. Thought leaders believe that until the enterprise gets better command of its resources, the promised dream of "services when and where you need them" will remain just an idea of where business applications are heading and that the unique combined capabilities of grid technology, including management of resources and information services, create the framework within which SOAs can succeed.

Analysts predict, that by 2008, 60 per cent of enterprises will harness SOA as their "guiding principal" for IT projects. Other compelling figures provided by analysts include assertion that, by 2008, the SOA market will be worth some $6.2 billion.

Analyst statistics are all well and good. The difference with SOA is that enterprise organisations across many different vertical industries are already starting to act on this advice.

The Vendor Response

Given the column inches devoted to this technology in recent months, it is little surprise that major IT vendors have been quick to jump on the SOA bandwagon.