Learn Why SOA Requires an Upfront Prioritization Strategy

Learn Why SOA Requires an When building an SOA, the first step is to implement a core prioritization strategy for the assets being created. SOA, while it is a complex architecture, has a lifecycle. You must learn to manage the lifecycle and track the assets throughout, and ultimately the whole architecture. Portfolio tools provide an ongoing inventory of current and future business services while SDLC management tools identify services and controls their development. Across a fully mature lifecycle, these activities tie back and integrate to development-time activities as the integral start of lifecycle governance.

“This new white paper “Why SOA Governance Must Start at Development Time” written by Zapthink Analyst David Linthicum; addresses these and many more important SOA topics.”
Components of development time SOA Governance include:

• A registry and/or repository for the tracking of Service development
• Integration with leading application development tools
• Integration with deployment tools
• Integration with testing tools and ServicesUpfront Prioritization Strategy.

Read more at: The SOA Network

Why SOA Governance Must Start at Development Time

Now that SOA is moving from the planning to the project levels, there is a clear need to manage SOA’s assets, as well as maximize its key values: Agility and reuse. Thus, the use of a well-defined and well-implemented SOA governance system is critical to the success of SOA. Choosing the right governance system requires that you carefully consider specific attributes of the enterprise domain, including an inventory of the major SOA resources such as data, Services, and processes, as well as interactions and dependencies, and how all relate to the notions of policy management, service agreements, and security. Clearly, these interrelationships are so complex and far reaching that a SOA governance system is an absolute necessity.

So, how do you select and implement a governance system? There are a few key things to consider as you define and build your SOA, and clear steps you must follow to achieve success. In this paper we’ll take a look at the concept of SOA governance, as well as the steps needed to implement governance within your SOA problem domain.

ZapThink chapter published in “IT Governance: An Introduction”

In this digital era, Information Technology (IT) has become a core element for businesses to make their operations more efficient, improve product quality, comply with statutory requirements, manage risk and security- in short, generate overall business value. As the dependence of organizations on IT had grown, the IT budgets have increased significantly. Thus, the management were required to optimize IT investment and extract maximum value out of every dollar spent on IT resources. That was how emerged a need for having appropriate IT governance practices in organizations.

Read more at: ICFAI Press

AmberPoint Takes Duo Approach To SOA Policy Governance

“The problem with many of the appliances and security solutions in the Web services and SOA space is that they require you to define the policies within their own solution, causing problems when there’s multiple systems in the enterprise,” Ronald Schmelzer, analyst for ZapThink LLC, said. “There’s no reason to make such a tight coupling, and so, what Amberpoint is doing is right on par with what companies are increasingly looking for in environments of heterogeneity.”

While AmberPoint may have an “early mover advantage,” other vendors are either adding, or are looking to add, similar capabilities. Those vendors include Layer 7 Technologies, Forum Systems and SOA Software; as well as policy and metadata management vendors like Software AG, Infravio, and Logic Library, Schmelzer said. Big platform vendors IBM, BEA Systems, and others are also moving in the same direction.

Read more at: CMP / TechWeb

‘Agentless’ SOA governance unveiled by AmberPoint

Jason Bloomberg, senior analyst with ZapThink Inc., said AmberPoint is on the right track with it’s new release, but that other vendors in the SOA governance space are also recognizing the changing capabilities within the infrastructure.

“AmberPoint is one of several vendors recognizing the need for closed loop SOA governance,” the analyst said. He said this “closed loop” trend is leading vendors to recognize “that governance is more than creating policies or even enforcing policies, but also includes policy execution as well as feedback from the runtime environment back to the policy definition and management.”

The analyst said other vendors in the governance space, including SOA Software Inc., WebLayers Inc., Layer 7 Technologies Inc., Mercury Interactive Inc. (now owned by HP) and LogicLibrary Inc., can be expected to release products along similar lines in the coming months.

So while AmberPoint’s announcement is definitely on the right track,” Bloomberg said, “it’s one of a family of offerings that provide for the necessary closed-loop SOA governance.

Read more at: SearchWebServices

IBM making $1 billion bet on SOA

LogicLibrary, although still independent, announced a worldwide reseller agreement with IBM Global Services last week that will allow IBM Global Services to resell and provide services for LogicLibrary’s Logidex registry/repository and design time governance product.

In time, the company could be a natural acquisition target for Oracle, said Ronald Schmelzer, senior analyst at ZapThink.

IBM’s other main SOA competitors — notably BEA Systems, HP, and SAP. — are, like Oracle, software vendors with a strong presence in middleware.

HP’s SOA offerings appear more focused on a subset of SOA around management and governance, Cearley said. It’s not clear what SAP will do — adopt IBM’s approach and build its own registry/repository or, less likely, acquire one, Schmelzer said.

With IBM’s reaffirmation to SOA, Schmelzer sees echoes of the company’s wholehearted embrace of e-business in the mid-’90s, which manifested itself across every segment of Big Blue’s business.

“It’s the same level of commitment,” Schmelzer said, pointing to the more than $1 billion IBM is investing in SOA-related areas this year.

“Clearly, IBM’s expecting a multibillion dollar return on its investment,” Schmelzer added.

Read more at: InfoWorld

IBM Global Services Agrees to Resell LogicLibrary’s SOA Governance Solution

“From its inception, LogicLibrary pioneered the space of metadata management, and offers one of the most comprehensive solutions for SOA metadata management and governance on the market,” said Ronald Schmelzer, senior analyst, ZapThink LLC. “The company has grown interest in its Logidex product beyond North America and Europe, into Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America, and as such, IBM Global Services will give LogicLibrary the ability to provide comprehensive SOA governance solutions to customers around the world, presenting a significant opportunity and achievement for LogicLibrary and its customers.”

Read more at: LogicLibrary Press Release

ZapThink: Enterprises Not Buying Service-Oriented Architecture by Name; Consulting Firms Integrate SOA Best Practices with Business-Focused Offerings

BALTIMORE, Md.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Sept. 6, 2006–ZapThink released a report today showing that few enterprises are specifically budgeting for or requesting Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) by name. Instead, business buyers budget for specific solutions to their business problems, and more consulting firms than ever before leverage Service Orientation best practices to provide those solutions. The main buyer of such initiatives has shifted toward the non-technical, business part of the enterprise.

“The clear pattern with today’s SOA projects is that they are increasingly business-focused,” said Jason Bloomberg, Senior Analyst with ZapThink. “Many consulting firms are integrating SOA best practices into a broad differentiated offering that is not necessarily specific to SOA.”

ZapThink expects the percentage of IT projects overall that leverage Service Orientation best practices to continue to grow over time, and those best practices will soon become ubiquitous. ZapThink also expects the percentage of IT projects that are named, SOA-specific projects to peak in 2007, with Service Orientation best practices increasingly subsumed within the expected, routine part of IT projects more broadly after that date.

Key findings of the report include:

• Breaking up a large SOA initiative into multiple, discrete projects is an effective way to manage the risk of architectural change.
• Integration-centric offerings and technologies are taking a back seat to organizations’ need to improve their overall approach to enterprise architecture.
• Many SOA consulting providers are confused by product vendors who often distort the true message of SOA to best fit their product offerings.
• Many SOA consulting firms confuse architecture with implementation, causing significant issues in short-term SOA adoption.
• Average deal sizes for SOA projects range from an average of $150,000 for integration-focused efforts to several million dollars for enterprisewide and compliance-focused initiatives.

The report, available on ZapThink’s Web site at www.zapthink.com, features several firms offering SOA consulting services, including Accenture (NYSE: ACN – News), AgilePath, Alphacourt, Anexinet, Arc Aspicio, Avanade, BEA Systems (NASDAQ: BEAS – News), BearingPoint (NYSE: BE – News), Bouvet, CapGemini (Paris), CherryRoad Technologies, City Practitioners, D. Callingham & Assoc., Daugherty Business Solutions, Definition 6, e-Brilliance, eSigma, gen-i, Geniant, Hitachi Consulting (NYSE: HIT – News), HP (NYSE: HPQ – News), IBM Global Services (NYSE: IBM – News), Infosys (NASDAQ: INFY – News), innoQ, IPT, Kanbay (NASDAQ: KBAY – News), Keane (NYSE: KEA – News), Lydian Technology, MITRE, Modhelus, Momentum SI, MphasiS, MW2 Consulting, Network Effects, Online Business Systems, PricewaterhouseCoopers, ProSolveIT, Satyam (NYSE: SAY – News), Schumacher Partners, Semantic Arts, SentientPoint, SilverTrain, SOA Software, SOA Systems, Software AG (Frankfurt), SRL Group, Statera, Summa Technologies, Synergy International, Systemiclogic, TasmanAve, TeamSOA, Tier1 Innovation, Voyant Group, Wipro (NYSE: WIT – News), WM-Data (Stockholm), and XWebServices. The report also mentions the following vendors: AmberPoint, Composite Software, Fiorano, Forum Systems, Infravio, LogicLibrary, Mercury (OTC: MERQ – News), Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT – News), Mindreef, Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL – News), Reactivity, RedHat (NASDAQ: RHAT – News), SAP (NYSE: SAP – News), Sun Microsystems (NASDAQ: SUNW – News), WSO2, and WebLayers.

Read more at: ZapThink Press Release

SOA Consulting: Current Market Trends

As the practice of Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) matures, professional services firms that offer SOA-related services continue to lead the market in the creation and application of best practices for SOA. For this report, ZapThink surveyed 58 consulting firms who identified themselves as offering SOA consulting services in order to assemble a detailed, global picture of the state of the market for SOA consulting worldwide. ZapThink found a substantial maturation of SOA consulting offerings across the board, with an increased focus on the business value that SOA can provide. While there still remains some confusion over the nature and applicability of SOA, methodologies, engagements, and understanding of the SOA value proposition have all dramatically improved in the last few years to the point that SOA best practices are increasingly being taken for granted as the standard approaches for solving a broad range of business problems in organizations around the world.

So much metadata, so little time

So where does registry end and repository begin? Waters quotes ZapThink’s Ron Schmelzer, who sums up the challenge this way:

”Registries (like Infravio, Systinet, and Software AG) emerged when Web Services required them through UDDI and other access mechanisms,” he says. ”Repositories (like those offered by Software AG, LogicLibrary, and Flashline) were first used by developers to manage all their assets, but once those assets became services, it all started to get mushed together.”

Read more at: ZDNet Blogs