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SOA Predictions

As a company that's been in the thick of many an SOA project and holding a passionate interest in, QAT offers its friends and clients the following status of and predictions on the future of SOA:

1. Most organizations are not at the full-functioning SOA stage yet. They are still managing a JBOWS (Just a Bunch of Web Services) environment, and will be at this stage for a while.

2. The SOA Paradox:The organizations that are adopting SOA often don’t really need SOA, and ironically the organizations that could really use SOA the most are not likely to be adopting it anytime soon.

3. SOA, SaaS, and open source will give rise to application vendors that follow the “Dell” model – assemble components to order; don’t make them yourself. SOA, SaaS, and open source will also provide opportunities to sell pieces of applications, on demand.
   

4. Vendors will lose interest in the term “SOA” – prepare to hear more about next-gen solutions, such as Event Driven Architecture or Enterprise 2.0.

5. More convergence between SOA and enterprise data management —companies are anxious to turn data into competitive advantage as fast as they can; SOA will enable this for those who choose to do so.

6. More SOAs will be built on open source software. Already, there are an impressive array of open-source application servers, ESBs, and business process management/orchestration solutions out there. This will commoditize SOA solutions, and disrupt what is currently a lucrative market for high-end vendors.

7. SOA success will be uneven. As mentioned above, some organizations are more ready to take advantage of SOA than others.

8. SOA will play a greater role for budget-conscious companies looking to control IT costs.

The above predictions are in no certain order or importance and are intended to share QAT’s thoughts about our experiences in the SOA journey. Service Oriented Architecture promises to be a significant innovation for business and IT alike. Imagine the ability to pick and choose business and technology services. To be able to trade out services based on organizational re-design, new strategic intent, legislative requirements, or business process modifications. To be able to reduce redundancy and improve data quality. SOA is not another new technology. It is a whole philosophy about sharing, decoupling business processes from technology, to enable a fluid enterprise that can change and change quickly. The vision that has been touted for so long within enterprise architecture regarding the “spontaneous enterprise” can now be your reality through the successful embracement of SOA.

For more information, please visit http://www.qat.com/es_soa_overview.asp.