organizational adoption of soa best practices...

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Copyright © 2007, ZapThink, LLC 1

Organizational Adoption ofSOA Best Practices

Jason BloombergSenior AnalystZapThink, LLC

Take Credit Code: WIPORG


The Problems of IT areThe Problems of Business

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Business Constant: Change

CHANGE

CompetitionCompetition

Changing Changing MarketplaceMarketplace Customer Customer

DemandsDemands

Mergers & Mergers & AcquisitionsAcquisitions

Optimizing Optimizing ProcessesProcesses

New New TechnologiesTechnologies

Business Business PartnersPartners

A Business is Never A Business is Never STATICSTATIC


The Business Inflexibility Trap

• Inflexibility is the Mother of All Business Problems– If you’re flexible enough, you can solve all the other

problems

• Information Technology (IT) is an impediment to business change– It wasn’t supposed to be that way!

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• Companies require Business Agility…

»Responding quickly to change, and

»Leveraging change for competitive advantage

J

Business Agility

Agility is the key to innovationAgility is the key to innovation


We’ve had IT challenges for years …

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… but even after yesterday’s promises…


… we still have the same IT mess, only worse.

Rather than simply throwing more software & iron at the Rather than simply throwing more software & iron at the problem, we need a better way of organizing IT resourcesproblem, we need a better way of organizing IT resources

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Level Set – What is SOA?

• SOA is architecture – a set of best practices for the organization and use of IT, and the discipline to follow them

• Abstracts software functionality as loosely-coupled, business-oriented Services

• Services can be composed into applications which implement business processes in a flexible way, without programming


Architecture is not About the Technology

Just as a building architect is more concerned with the space, not the walls, the IT architect is concerned with how people use the technology, not the technology itself

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Business Drivers for SOA

• Reduction in integration expense– EAI replacement/EAI maintenance reduction– Legacy enablement/migration/rejuvenation

• Increase in reuse – Reduction in redundancy– Better customer visibility

• Greater Visibility– Enablement of governance &

compliance– Improved efficiency

Increase in business agility– Improved competitiveness– Faster innovation


SOA Abstracts the Plumbing

• The goal is reusable, composable business Services

• Many different approaches to implementation…

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There’s No Such Thing as a SOA Wizard!

• Click…click…click…done! You now have a SOA!

• Will never happen because…– SOA best practices are too

general– Each organization has a

different environment, both technical and cultural

The architectThe architect’’s answer is usuallys answer is usually““it dependsit depends””


Challenge: SOA is Architecture

• Remember…SOA is architecture – in particular, Enterprise Architecture, including:

– An aggregated architecture of all the individual IT systems within an organization

– The human element within the enterprise

– Systems, people, and organizational constructs at other companies that have relationships with the enterprise

– Individual consumers who are that enterprise’s customers

– Corporate governance

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Is there an Architect in the House?

• The new discipline of architecture– A formal approach to organizing IT resources

is still a relatively new practice

• Just how big is the big picture?– Architects must have an enterprisewide view

• Where are the architects?– It’s hard to learn architecture at college –

most learn on the job


Building the right SOA team

• Shared Services cross organizational boundaries

• Siloed IT management styles are becoming inadequate

• The new role for enterprise architects

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Challenge: Inertia in the Organization

• Architecture doesn’t have features and business executives pay for features!

• Moving to SOA means breaking down silos and sharing resources

• The technology change is easy – it’s the human change that’s the hard part!


Building Support for SOA

• Find your champion– May be LOB manager, CIO, management-

level architect, or other architect

• Build the business case– Solve business problems while

transitioning to new architecture

• Tackle project iteratively within context of overall plan

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Service Orientation:A Business Approach

• It’s not about connecting things, it’s about enabling processes

• The core business motivation is business agility

• Rather than “rip and replace” old systems –make them work better together

• It’s not about technology, integration, or middleware


Business Process the Old Way…

• People plugged into rigid processes• Inflexible & brittle

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Business Process the Service-Oriented Way…

• IT resources (among other resources) available to the business as needed

• Business users create composite applications by composing Services on the fly


The Rise of the SOBA

• A Service-Oriented Business Application (SOBA) is a composite application composed of Services that implements a business process

• SOBA is a Gartner term, but this definition is a bit different from theirs

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SOA: Rethinking the Application Altogether

• Today, business users apply Services to solve business problems by building Service-Oriented Business Apps (SOBAs)

• SOA abstracts existing capabilities– Breaks down existing application silos

• SOA puts greater power into the hands of business users– Requires tooling business users

are comfortable with

• SOA empowers IT governance– Creating, communicating, and managing policies more

important than ever


The Automation Paradox

• The more we automate, the more our remaining problems are difficult to automate

• Is IT about getting the technology to work together or to help the business meet its goals?

• Achieving the right balance among automation, agility & user empowerment is critical

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Varieties of Business Processes

• Static business processes– Stable, well-understood– Would benefit little from SOA

• Flexible business processes– Processes that must respond to changing

business requirements– Key SOA business motivation

• Ad hoc business processes– May be “one off” or impromptu team processes– Rarely automated today– Automation of ad hoc processes an advanced benefit of

SOA


SOBAs & Service Consumers

• Composing a business process accomplishes the goals of integration

• Leverages variety of interface tools• Not just design time, but full lifecycle

implication• Why the Service Model must be full lifecycle

State ofthe Art!

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The Rise of the Service Consumer

Data/BI Legacy LOB Packaged Apps Trading Partners

Packaged Apps

Devices & People

Web 2.0

Portal

Operating Systems

Source: Microsoft


The Rise of the Mashup

• Mashup = a flexible composition of Services within a rich user interface environment

• In essence, a Mashup is a SOBA interface

State ofthe Art!

Source: http://web2.wsj2.com

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Empower Business Users?

• The mashup: leveraging the Web to compose Services into ad hoc apps

• Without management and governance, will never be appropriate in an enterprise environment

• How to empower users in the spirit of the mashup, but maintain necessary control?

Governance the key to the Governance the key to the ““Enterprise MashupEnterprise Mashup””


Web 2.0 vs. SOA

Web 2.0 SOA

Mashups

EnterpriseMashups

EnterpriseWeb 2.0

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Enterprise Mashup in Action

Interactsvia

Phone

Views KPIsMakes Policy

Decisions

Interactswith

Web Site

Interactswith Phone& Screen

ReconfiguresSOBAs

MakesChanges toProcesses

Customer

Call Center Rep

Call Center Manager

Customer

Business Analyst

Executive

CustomerServiceSOBA


Without Governance,Mashups are Dangerous

• Mashups enable unpredictable SOBAs

• Risks: – Confidentiality breaches– Unauthorized capabilities– Fraud

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Without SOA, Mashups are Toys

• Loose coupling of underlying Services essential for reliability & agility

• How can Google & Amazon update their Services?


Flexibility, Empowerment & Control

• The old way: IT management maintains control, doles out limited capabilities to users

• The Service-Oriented way: IT empowers a wide range of business users to build and manage SOBAs

• Risk: business users will really muck things up!

• Solution: SOA governance – business user empowerment in the context of policy-based control

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Challenge: People, Change and Fear

• People are inherently resistant to change

• People consider job security, authority and responsibility when asked to share

• Fear is the strongest emotion of all!


Thank You!

ZapThink is an industry advisory & analysis firm focused exclusively on Service-Oriented Architecture.

Jason Bloomberg

[email protected]

Read our new book, Service Orient or Be Doomed! How Service Orientation Will Change Your Business.

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