6 hot technologies for 2006: SOA

If you're looking for a blockbuster change in the way your company develops applications, service-oriented architecture is just the ticket. But it won't be easy, because SOA means long-term dedication, ongoing maintenance and incremental results.

An SOA environment - one in which application components are built to be modular, reusable, easily integrated and consumed on the fly - promises adopters numerous benefits, such as lower costs, less redundancy among IT resources and fewer people doing the same work. Its potential to improve efficiency and lower costs has an increasing number of enterprise IT shops looking at SOA and industry watchers forecasting big dollars to be spent on SOA-related technologies in the next few years.

According to a recent IDC survey of more than 280 U.S. organizations, more than one-third have SOA projects or application-level initiatives under development or planned for the next 12 months. The research firm estimates that SOA-driven software spending worldwide will reach nearly $9 billion by the end of 2009.

Early adopters and industry watchers warn, however, that the promises of SOA won't sync up with the realities if IT managers opt for a quick fix. Achieving the desired results requires close attention to business processes, consistent changes in application consumption and behavioral discipline across the IT and business organization. Although IT shops could invest in middleware, Web-services technologies and enterprise service buses, SOA doesn't require new technology.

"You can't buy SOA. You can buy tools that may help you get closer to an SOA, but there is no easy, one-off purchase that can make SOA a reality without a lot of work over time," says Ron Schmelzer, a senior analyst with ZapThink. "You have to start with baby steps, incrementally adapting to SOA and consistently proving the value to the business so it will continue to invest further in SOA."

According to Schmelzer, a good first step is to take an inventory of proprietary middleware and application interfaces and replace them with standards-based systems and APIs. The goals are to eliminate the application-integration nightmare that currently haunts a majority of IT shops and to remove redundant components. Adapting the interfaces, either with Web services or other standards, will speed the process of making application components work together. And don't discount legacy systems.

"If you can prove you can make SOA happen on legacy apps, you will have an easier time proving it for new ones," Schmelzer says.

Michael Kronenwetter, vice president of technology management at Highmark, in Pittsburgh, is stepping up his organization's SOA adoption in 2006. The health-insurance provider last year implemented LogicLibrary's Logidex mapping and discovery engine to better understand how application resources are developed, consumed and reused across the organization. The product is helping to create a library of components. Going forward and working with IBM, Kronenwetter hopes to restructure the company's information architecture to better support an SOA model.