Service-Oriented Architecture Consulting for Professional Services Organizations

Service-Oriented Architectures (SOAs) represent an evolutionary approach to distributed computing that promises a flexible IT environment that leads to business agility. As companies look to leverage the business advantages of Web Services to address strategic business needs, they are increasingly looking to build SOAs. However, SOAs require special skills and expertise. When companies do not have such skills in-house, they turn to consultants, system integrators, and other professional services organizations.

The movement to SOAs present both opportunities and threats to consulting firms: on the one hand, there will be an increased demand for architectural consulting, business process consulting and the implementation tasks associated with building SOAs. On the other hand, as SOAs take hold and Service-oriented process solutions supplant integration solutions, the market for system integration will dry up, requiring system integrators to change their business focus.

This report analyzes the market for SO

Service-Oriented Architecture Consulting

Service-Oriented Architectures (SOAs) represent an evolutionary approach to distributed computing that promises a flexible IT environment that leads to business agility. As companies look to leverage the business advantages of Web Services to address strategic business needs, they are increasingly looking to build SOAs. However, SOAs require special skills and expertise. When companies do not have such skills in-house, they turn to consultants, system integrators, and other professional services organizations.

The movement to SOAs present both opportunities and threats to consulting firms: on the one hand, there will be an increased demand for architectural consulting, business process consulting and the implementation tasks associated with building SOAs. On the other hand, as SOAs take hold and Service-oriented process solutions supplant integration solutions, the market for system integration will dry up, requiring system integrators to change their business focus.

This report analyzes the market for SOA within professional services organizations from three perspectives: from the point of view of the consulting firm, who must understand how its business must change; from the perspective of the enterprise user, who must select and manage a consultant; and from the point of view of software vendors who wish to work with consultants to help them meet the needs of their customers.

Service-Oriented Architecture Consulting for Enterprise End-Users

Service-Oriented Architectures (SOAs) represent an evolutionary approach to distributed computing that promises a flexible IT environment that leads to business agility. As companies look to leverage the business advantages of Web Services to address strategic business needs, they are increasingly looking to build SOAs. However, SOAs require special skills and expertise. When companies do not have such skills in-house, they turn to consultants, system integrators, and other professional services organizations.

The movement to SOAs present both opportunities and threats to consulting firms: on the one hand, there will be an increased demand for architectural consulting, business process consulting and the implementation tasks associated with building SOAs. On the other hand, as SOAs take hold and Service-oriented process solutions supplant integration solutions, the market for system integration will dry up, requiring system integrators to change their business focus.

This report analyzes the market for SO

Service-Oriented Architecture Consulting Partnership Landscape

Service-Oriented Architectures (SOAs) represent an evolutionary approach to distributed computing that promises a flexible IT environment that leads to business agility. As companies look to leverage the business advantages of Web Services to address strategic business needs, they are increasingly looking to build SOAs. However, SOAs require special skills and expertise. When companies do not have such skills in-house, they turn to consultants, system integrators, and other professional services organizations.

The movement to SOAs present both opportunities and threats to consulting firms: on the one hand, there will be an increased demand for architectural consulting, business process consulting and the implementation tasks associated with building SOAs. On the other hand, as SOAs take hold and Service-oriented process solutions supplant integration solutions, the market for system integration will dry up, requiring system integrators to change their business focus.

This report analyzes the market for SO

OASIS Forms Committee to Promote BPEL

Ronald Schmelzer, an analyst with ZapThink LLC, a Cambridge, Mass., market research firm, said: “The submission of BPEL to OASIS is a great step for BPEL as well as Web Services in general. BPEL is a key specification aimed at providing a mechanism by which Web Services can be orchestrated into business processes, which can then be exchanged and choreographed with external processes. Business process is a critical aspect of adoption of Web Services and especially Service-Oriented Architectures since business processes are how companies define their business requirements that must then be implemented with Web Services. Without process, all you have is a jumble of Web Services. Specifications like BPEL bring order to the chaos by specifying a logical flow by which Web Services can be orchestrated to meet defined business requirements.”

Read more at: eWeek

Overview of Web Services Security

Download File

ZapNote: Sybase

Download File

OASIS Works to ID Distributed Directory Services

ZapThink analyst Ronald Schmelzer discussed the tackling of XRI with internetnews.com.

“The XRI idea is a good one, although it really conflicts with many of the initiatives for using URLs within the context of Web Services. For example, much of the purpose of UDDI is to facilitate the dynamic discovery and binding to services that themselves are defined at specific URLs. Thus, the URLs represent a specific binding location and UDDI should be the way to isolate us from having to know those URLs ahead of time — an automated search engine, to overly simplify things. However, XRI claims that they will be working within the concept of URIs and directory services, such as UDDI. But, the challenge is to get their XRI naming mechanism adopted by those that facilitate creation and deployment of Web Services.”

Read more at: Internetnews.com

JP Morgan, IBM Finalize $5 Billion IT Deal

“I think this [deal] is going to be their poster child for ‘on demand’,” said Ronald Schmelzer, a senior analyst with ZapThink, a tech research firm which specializes in XML and Web Services computing protocols.

“On the positive side, it reflects the movement toward utility computing, even IT infrastructure as services, which started out as part of the ASP (define) trend” in the mid to late-1990s, he said.

However, he added, as the tech giant sells more of these kinds of contracts, and ends up running critical infrastructure for more major companies, “is IBM really going to be able to scale up ‘on demand’ infrastructure, beyond simply bearing everybody’s else’s [IT] costs?”

Read more at: Internetnews.com

Web Services Security Technologies & Markets

Download File