The SOA Challenge

Business agility

At its core, soa is a strategy for business agility, Kane said. Because SOA uses loosely coupled services— reusable components that represent business tasks—it can deliver applications that are cost-effective, enable integration and leverage legacy investments, he said.

“SOA is not just a technology play but a business agility one that requires consultants who have the skills to address the alignment of business and IT,” said Sandy Carter, IBM’s vice president of SOA.

Business agility was a priority for MIB, a provider of fraud detection services for insurance companies, when it began looking at SOA solutions from IBM a year ago, said Alexander Klevitsky, director of architecture and enterprises software at MIB. The company implemented SOA using IBM’s DataPower SOA security appliance and Web 2.0 services.

SOA, he said, provides MIB with a better way for the insurance companies with which it does business to communicate with MIB’s database of about 20 million records.

“In the past, it was difficult for us to support customers’ various ways of connecting to our database, which is the main way they use our services,” Klevitsky said. “SOA and Web 2.0 have enabled us to assure customers of secure, double-encrypted data exchanges when they access our database via a Web browser.”

Business agility is also the central theme of a multiphase SOA project Infosys is implementing for Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway Company. BNSF wants an architecture enabling it to change quickly according to market needs, Padmanabhuni said.

BNSF operates one of the largest rail networks in North America, with 33,500 route miles of track in 28 states and two Canadian provinces.

“Our objective in 2007 was to develop and reuse 18 business services,” said Jeff McIntyre, assistant vice president of technology services for BNSF. “We succeeded in developing and reusing 40 services.”

McIntyre cited a new service that allows customers to receive a price quote for shipments that will move over two or more railroads. Previously, customers had to negotiate separate prices with the individual railroads.

A tough sell

Despite its many tangible and measurable benefits, SOA is far from being an easy sell or an easy project for solution providers, experts said.

IBM’s Carter cited the difficulty of finding consultants with the right skills as one of two main obstacles. The other obstacle is customers’ reluctance to change their siloed approach to projects that involve horizontal processes. “To be agile, we have to go horizontal within companies,” Carter said. “For example, human resources’ issues are horizontal because they cut across an entire company.”

For many customers, a main concern is anticipating what impact SOA will have on business, said Brian Ott, vice president of technology at Unisys, a worldwide IT services and consulting company. “Customers want to know how the project’s duration and cost will affect their operations, which are very real concerns when companies have global activities, large legacy shops and numerous applications,” Ott said.

Making the case

Solution providers need to hook clients initially by being on the same page as they are in terms of business and IT goals, Carter said.

“IT firms have to make sure the initial traction on SOA is not lost amidst various transformation initiatives,” Padmanabhuni said. “Clients want to see proof of immediate and long-term benefits that will deliver direct or indirect value.”

It also is vital to illustrate the promises of SOA into credible business examples so that clients do not look upon SOA as “snake oil,” Padmanabhuni said. ´

Herman Mehling is a freelance writer based in San Anselmo, Calif. He can bereached at hermanmehling@sbcglobal.net.