Agile SOA approach
However, with tragic tales of SOA projects failing to live up to the hype, the time phenomenon has highlighted that a light and agile methodology might be the way forward as opposed to traditional approaches.
Most service based solutions have been based on the proverbial holy grails such as Enterprise wide Canonical Data Model and Service Bus. However, the next wave would require a shift towards more efficient variants that are tailored to the specific needs of business, with prioritization based on market dynamics, enterprise inertia, business priorities, investment strategy, and ROI..
Skipping the Canonical Data Model to move towards a federated MDM strategy and a brokerage approach to communication between systems is the way forward. This should ideally be based around a distributed data strategy that leaves information in the source systems but provides references between them. Consider the impossibility of imposing the Canonical Data Model on the software-as-a-service (SaaS) providers and the virtue of this approach becomes apparent.
Similarly, the Enterprise Service Bus is a myth as well. The entire enterprise will never get on a single ‘bus’. This is primarily since there never will be a business case strong enough pull funding for the strategic service model on legacy systems. A more pragmatic approach would be to divide the enterprise bus into two logical sections. These are, the Clean Data Bus that hosts enterprise services adhering to the enterprise service framework, and the Dirty Bus to host specific services for legacy and non-adhering systems. The dirty bus clearly scores over the erstwhile point-to-point integration, offering greater control over auditing, logging and exception handling.
To define the SOA roadmap well, it is critical to understand that it is not just about processes or services definition but also technology and people that will make or break the initiative. For an organization to adopt this strategy, it needs to be mature enough to take the risk of initial investment. Organizations with a clear focus on implementation will reap long-term benefits.
Note: The above post has been based on an article co-authored by me on the same theme to be published soon.
