So, I wasn’t too excited when I saw, “Investing in SOA in a Down Economy,” a recent piece by ZapThink’s Ronald Schmelzer. But after reading it, I must say: Schmelzer makes a compelling case that SOA could be a real asset in a down economy, and along the way, he offers concrete recommendations about how to proceed with SOA without a huge, upfront financial commitment.

Schmelzer contends that SOA does not need to be risky. The key is to take small steps and measure the results as you go, he says:

You can get immediate benefits from SOA by simply building one Service that is broadly consumed in the organization and, more importantly, addresses a key business process problem relating to change. How do you know that a problem is worth solving in a Service-oriented way? If you can identify a continuous cost or time consumption associated with changing that business process in any respect.

My favorite piece of advice from the article is for funding SOA projects. Schmelzer suggests you start by focusing on one business process and use SOA to improve it:

…you can simply offer the business to recover the costs by improving the business process and using those recovered funds to reinvest in the enterprise architecture, starting the cycle again. How would a cost-recovery approach to SOA budgeting work? The key is to start with the smallest business process you can find that is the most inefficient, where the inefficiency is caused by an aspect of continuous change (a lack of agility) and the business is nevertheless forced to continue to invest in that inefficient business process.

That’s a really smart concept, and if I thought everyone would follow Schmezler’s advice, then I’d be more inclined to agree that SOA could get a big boost from a down economy. The bloggers and the analysts will just have to wait and see. But for those of you in the driver’s seat, definitely check out Schmelzer’s article, particularly if you’re considering abandoning SOA — or embracing it – because of the economic turmoil.

Read more at: IT Business Edge