SOEA - Service Oriented Enterprise Architecture

I keep hearing people talking about SOA as a strategic goal - or in other words the “to-be” of their EA-program. In my world this isn’t possible, SOA might be the means to reach a strategic goal, but must never be the goal itself!

SOA is not a “one size fits all” and it is important to acknowledge this and identify the right flavor of SOA for the given enterprise. However doing this requires a strategy on which to target “the right flavor of SOA”. SOA makes many promises but none of them comes for free…

So lets just emphasize: SOA must never be a strategic goal in it self!

I have previously made a few posts about the hypes of SOA – e.g. what SOA will magically bring you. Joe McKendrick hits the issue spot on; SOA dos not give you anything for free, but if you know your primary objective of “going SOA”, these goals are obtainable. Joe McKendrick gives in his post ten examples of projects following this trail of thought! This is how to do it…

All the sales pitches I have listed here on my blog won’t come by them selves they require hard work. However I believe if you approach SOA with respect it is possible to get the promised benefits. The key lies in not seeing SOA as a “stand alone” project, but to integrate SOA closely into to your EA program – Stated by Gurpreet S. Pall on his presentation on the TechEd in Malaysia 2004: “If you don’t do EA, you can’t do SOA.”

But what still remains to be answered is how to integrate EA and SOA! SOA will fundamentally change how to approach IT within the enterprise; hence also change how you approach EA.

If you have stumbled upon other sales pitches than the ones I have pointed out please feel free to comment.

Making IT Governance easier.
Easing central overview of the IT Enterprise

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Place independent
Physical location can be changed runtime.

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Platform independence.
SOA can work across multiple platform through standard interfaces.

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Cut down in development cost.
The development cost will initially be higher, but will when the SOA matures be lover.

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Flexibility to interchangeably change from one service provider to another.
Integration is not only an internal issue.

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Easy integration with both inside and outside partners – cutting expense.
The ability to seamlessly integrate systems across platform and silos is by some seen as what SOA is all about.

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Creating real-time/on demand systems
The concept of the; “On Demand Business” is a concept trademarked by IBM. It is a parallel to the previous “Supporting “short lifetime” products” and the same comments apply here.

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