Just got back from Singapore, 2 days ago, after attending the SOA & ECM (Service-Oriented Architecture & Enterprise Content Management) Day conferences there. The events were held by SDA Asia Magazine (a periodical focusing largely on Enterprise-Level IT). Sponsors of the events include big names in IT; Software AG, EMC, Serena Software, Sun Microsystems, HP (IT Governance & SOA Divisions), IBM (WebSphere Portal & WorkPlace Divisions), Interwoven Inc.
I get a better idea of what SOA (you can find a pretty good definition of SOA at xml.com) literally means, in terms of IT Governance; The management of ERP Systems, The integration of legacy systems with cutting edge technologies, How these processes can be tuned in accordance with a company's needs, and to loose-couple processes so as to be dynamically linked (instead of obsolete methods of statically linking processes). Basically, in a way, that is saying SOA implies a wide range of methods on how you can fine-tune your company's IT infrastructure to boost efficiency (so the CFO would stop bugging you about infrastructural and operational costs, ROI and overexpansion (in some cases) ). And efficiency literally means, costs are cut down, profits jump, ROI is faster than projected, and company gaining higher ground against competitors (so to say). Such includes, integration of systems where possible. Instead of running 2 or 3 parallel systems, you consolidate them to run on a single system, which automatically brings about cost savings in many areas (companies have a wide-range of pre-defined areas specific to each industry/sector).
While SOA is a rapidly growing new technology on the Enterprise-level systems, there's yet a need to gather up proof, on how effective SOA can accomodate current needs of upgrading old systems and in what time frame are we talking about here? How can SOA balance the needs of the CIO and the CFO, as we know the two different individuals has very different vantage points in terms of company expenditures and investments (who would always, undoubtfully, be in a tug-of-war with each other) ? Would ROI play a major role as a deciding factor, as whether SOA could or could not be implemented as a result of cost concerns? Time frame of which such tasks are being carried out? (too slow and the system fails, too fast and there would be problems later on).
Thus, challenges remain: How do we implement such a monolithic task of separating existing systems without causing glitches on the operational backend of it? or the infrastructural for that matter? How do we diagnose the problems of the current system, as we need to do that first, before any SOA implementation can be done. Would the big IT guys provide good enough solutions to accomodate the changing needs of the company? If they do, at what price tag? And for the wide range of different system integration needs, how much bang for the buck can they possibly ante up, as compared to what the Open Source community can?
ECM covered a less broad topic, as it discussed the delivery of content across a company, and how well content is managed. One of the presenters gave an example on a case he'd worked with; How an Indonesian company stacks its records of customer shipments & invoices in a warehouse that approximately held about 20 years of all transactional records (on paper), and all of a sudden, there was a need to find a customer's invoice among the large stacks of papers, and figuratively, it's like finding a needle in a haystack. It took the company 4 men, and 5 working days before finding the document needed. Moreover, after they found the document, it was processed manually from one division to another, so there can only be one person accessing that document simultaneously. All in all, the process took 10 days. Now, he compared that to a content management system, where a document is stored on a mainframe/blade system, and all one need to do is search for that document online, and have it ready in minutes, for the multiple personnels on multiple divisions. And there can be some 40-50 people from different divisions accessing the document simultaneously, saving time, effort and money!
SOA may be a defining factor for large enterprises, as IBM, HP and the like, had taken measurable steps in preparing for the IT Governance age in the coming days of IT-entrenched companies wanting to stay ahead of the pack. I reckon we need to look forward, that new methods of integration developed today, may kindle global skepticism, but unnecessarily do so in the near future. They may well be crucial tools to survive in the IT-oriented business environments.
If you wish to read up more on SOA, here are some links that I find useful:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Service-oriented_architecture
http://www.xml.com/pub/a/ws/2003/09/30/soa.html
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