Media Coverage
The Right Time to Streamline Unruly SOA Projects
Read on EbizQ
04/23/2009
Thanks to the "SOA is dead" debate, service-oriented architecture has experienced quite a bit of renewed popularity and excitement in recent months. Industry analysts, pundits and spokespersons have been weighing in on both sides of the spectrum. Some have been lobbying for the death of SOA, while others strenuously emphasize its relevance to speeding up the implementation of new projects and applications.
While this debate rages on, many IT managers are left wondering what exactly to do with SOA projects that often have substantial time and cost overruns. With companies still struggling to see the types of returns promised by SOA upon implementation, SOA projects have become the third rail of the IT infrastructure.
With the current economic climate, many companies are seeking to run their businesses as efficiently as possible, and don't have the robust bottom lines that can support uncertain technology initiatives -- such as many of the standalone SOA projects that have been foundering for years.
Rather than suffer through these lean times with SOA projects that are underperforming, forward-thinking companies are recognizing the need to revamp these projects to achieve the critical returns they once promised. By implementing SOA governance initiatives with a well-planned and incremental approach, these companies are able to streamline wasteful and unruly SOA projects, eliminating duplicated development through governance practices.
SOA initiatives should aim to:
Reduce wastefulness. By reusing previously tested and validated components and services, IT departments can rapidly leverage concrete results to the business areas. By reusing these assets, companies are able to develop or integrate applications more rapidly, with better quality while reducing costs. It is important to also objectively measure how many dollars of development hours the company has saved by using what they already have. This can be achieved by using tools that provide quantitative and qualitative metrics to measure reuse level and calculate ROI for the enterprise services and components portfolio.
Down times are good times to better organize things. When business demand is slow, IT should concentrate efforts to "clean up the room." By organizing and improving the way it develops applications, correcting inefficient processes and clearly defining governance processes and policies, IT can be far better prepared to meet business needs when the economy picks up again. This enables more visibility of the services and components portfolios as well as more control of assets and IT investments. Furthermore, IT doesn't need to wait for the economy recovers to benefit from this effort, because the reuse of services and components reduces cost and improves time to market of applications.
Go with best practices and incremental steps. One size does not fit all! Many companies do not have a clear idea of SOA governance so they are left thinking that it requires large investments on software and consulting services from the beginning. Companies that were unable to get the return from SOA they expected may also think that it didn't work because they didn't invest enough. But that is not the case. One of the most important aspects of SOA is that you can structure an incremental approach where the company can distribute investment efforts along the way. This is done by prioritizing the actions that will bring results more quickly, monitoring the process carefully (measuring the ROI and reuse level) and giving consistent steps towards more mature levels. That is when SOA proves itself!
These days, companies simply cannot afford to fund projects that don't provide tangible benefits to meet business needs, and SOA projects that were once immune to cutbacks due to poor performance are suddenly vulnerable. However, companies able to reuse existing assets, improve time-to-market and effectively measure results can achieve great benefits from SOA implementations.
As companies continue to streamline their business processes, it is imperative that they carry these practices over into the IT department. SOA projects can deliver tremendous business benefits, but this cannot happen if the projects are not closely mapped back to the companies' business objectives. By ensuring proper oversight of SOA projects and ROI, companies can preserve their invested capital for projects that provide maximum agility and benefit. Ultimately, this improves companies' abilities to thrive through tough economic climates.
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Highlights
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How to Save Costs by Streamlining Unruly IT Projects
In the face of the current economic downturn, many companies have begun to transition into survival mode, streamlining their businesses as much as possible in an effort to stay afloat. These companies are seeking to run their businesses as efficiently as possible and, now more than ever, don’t have the robust bottom lines to support technology initiatives that simply do not work. Here, Knowledge Center contributor Kleber Bacili explains how to streamline those wasteful and unruly IT projects that just have not been performing well.
