SOA doesn’t have to be a big bang

For many CIOs a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) is a top priority. At the same time, form many CIOs it turns out a complete nightmare. The reason is often that it is too large in scope, too much of a big bang, whereas it is perfectly possible to implement SOA step by step.
The difficult path towards making things easy 
Many SOAs are implemented in order to make IT or transparent. The service based architecture indeed allows to access new functionality or existing components in a far more easy and flexible way. Nevertheless, making things easier seems to be a hell of a job. The way to simplicity seems to be paved with difficulties, slowing SOA projects down considerably or even leading them into a dead end street. 

A SOA projects usually comes down to implementing a so-called Enterprise Service Bus (ESB), a middleware platform in which services can be created, orchestrated and managed. Often this serice bus implementation is a huge project that finally leads to the implementation of big, beautiful but empty black box. The real work, that is creating services on the bus and orchestrating business processes with them, has not even started. 

A solution based approach to your SOA transition
Quite some CIOs consider SOA a new paradigm, a new philosophy on how solutions should be built. From that point of view, their adherence to a big bang SOA approach is understandable. 

Nevertheless, such an approach rarely leads to the desired results. It might be better to consider First which processes within the company have most interest in a SOA approach. Obviously these processes will be those that differentiate your company from your competitors and/or are most subject to change. Introducing SOA for these processes will make your company more responsive to changing circumstances, which gives you a competitive edge. After a successful implementation of the SOA approach to these key processes, other processes may follow one at a time. 

Maybe an even better approach to implementing SOA, is the solution based approach. Imagine that you can solve a business issue by implementing a SOA based integration platform that already contains a number of predefined services. Such a platform would make it easy to build any solution you might need, with extremely low time-to-market. So no empty box, but a box of Lego bricks to build any castle you could dream of. 

Preformed combinations in the integration platform allow you to build even faster. When the Lego box already contains a tower and a drawbridge, your castle will be ready even sooner.  

 

Actions speak louder than words 
A big hurdle for SOA success often is lack of management support. CIOs don’t succeed in translating their enthusiasm about SOA into the Board’s language. A language in which time equals money, and in which long term ICT investment plans often meet a great deal of skepticism. 

To demonstrate short time-to-market and high return on investment, a first successful small-scope SOA project can be a blessing. At least if the project leads to the desired results in a significantly short time. That can be obtained by implementing a solution built with predefined services orchestrated in a SOA based integration platform. Once the first step is taken, and the management has seen what service oriented architecture can do, there will be far less resistance to a SOA based approach in challenges to come.