Breakout Systems and Applications Give Bankers New Options

When it comes to using service oriented architecture (SOA) and web services as a replacement for more traditional integration technologies, clearly banks have gotten on board, notes Jason Blumberg [sic], analyst with Zapthink, Waltham, Mass.

“Eighty or ninety percent of large financial services companies have some type of web services project in production, on however limited or ad hoc a basis,” Blumberg says.

“Instead of relying on proprietary ‘connectors’ for linking systems and exchanging data,” he explains, “they are using a different sort of open standard connection method in the form of running a service.”

Using services as simple connectors is a comparatively low level, beginner’s use of a system of computing that is complicated to describe but, once learned, flexible to deploy, according to the analyst.

“More advanced practitioners are working with a design methodology that is focused on standards, reusability, breaking down silos, and improving business process in creating applications,” says Blumberg.

He explains that banks such as Wells Fargo, Citigroup, Bank of America, Washington Mutual, and ABN Amro have taken the next generation leap, embracing SOA as a system wide method with a well- organized deployment strategy.

Moreover, these IT shops are aiming for an approach where they won’t have to rely on systems being “jerry-rigged together,” one arduous deployment at a time, to get an application operational.

Closely related to deploying SOA, notes Zapthink colleague Ron Schmelzer, are generally strong and effective processes of aligning IT activities with business goals and good project management.

“This facet of SOA refers to the organizational aspect of project management,” Schmelzer says.

“Banks with more advanced SOA adoption are addressing issues such as ‘what is the process for change management’; ‘what are the overarching goals for the IT department and business’,” he says. Rather than reacting to projects, IT is designing proactively.

Read more at: ABA Banking Journal

Service-Oriented Process

Business processes have always been an important, if understated, asset of enterprises. The nature and methods by which a company runs its business changes on a daily basis at various different levels in the company — from high-level strategic changes to lower-level implementation details. As a result of these changes, enterprises constantly struggle to make their businesses more responsive to business changes by connecting their business requirements to their IT and human capabilities.

However, automating business processes has historically been a difficult-to-achieve goal for most enterprises due to the flexibility of their IT infrastructure. Fortunately, businesses have a solution in Service-Oriented Process: a separate abstraction layer for business process definition and execution that leverages the capabilities of Service-oriented Architectures. Service-Oriented Process provides businesses an approach to tying business requirements to the Service model represented in the SOA metamodel, thereby providing a flexible approach towards implementing architectures that promote business agility.

Service-Oriented Process

Business processes have always been an important, if understated, asset of enterprises. The nature and methods by which a company runs its business changes on a daily basis at various different levels in the company — from high-level strategic changes to lower-level implementation details. As a result of these changes, enterprises constantly struggle to make their businesses more responsive to business changes by connecting their business requirements to their IT and human capabilities.

However, automating business processes has historically been a difficult-to-achieve goal for most enterprises due to the flexibility of their IT infrastructure. Fortunately, businesses have a solution in Service-Oriented Process: a separate abstraction layer for business process definition and execution that leverages the capabilities of Service-oriented Architectures. Service-Oriented Process provides businesses an approach to tying business requirements to the Service model represented in the SOA metamodel, thereby providing a flexible approach towards implementing architectures that promote business agility.