SOA 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.

“Wacky World of Web Services”

Current revenues from Web services are puny – just $380 million for all of 2001, according to estimates from ZapThink LLC, a Waltham, Mass.-based market research group. But ZapThink expects that to balloon to more than $15.5 billion once software services over the Internet become prevalent.

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ZapNote: Percussion

Rhythmyx offers a low total cost of ownership (TCO) for enterprise-class content management system by using XML, standards, Rhythmyx Accelerators, extensible "engines" for core system function, and Active Assembly and Dynamic Workflow to control how content is entered and used on Web pages.

ZapNote: Epicentric

Portals are being used to provide access to content sources or applications such as Siebel and SAP, and enable a common composite application that is accessible via a web browser-based interface. There is a strong intersection with this application-centric use of portals and what is going on with Web Services. Portals provide a compelling means for application delivery of Web Services in a familiar development and management environment. Epicentric has produced a number of advanced products and services to address this capability, and has championed the development of XML-based formats for specification of presentation-layer interfaces for Web Services.

Web Services Technologies & Trends

From its inception through 2002, the primary application for Web Services in the enterprise was to simplify point-to-point integration between systems, thereby reducing the cost of integration. This application of Web Services, however, only scratches the surface of the true potential of Web Services — enabling companies to build agile business processes and IT systems that can respond to change through the use of loosely coupled, standards-based Service-oriented architectures.

The business value of such architectures in terms of the business agility they provide is substantial, but as of early 2003, only a few early adopter enterprises have built such architectures, partly because few tools for building Service-oriented architectures are available on the market, and furthermore, there is little understanding of the best practices companies should follow to build such architectures. This report seeks to clarify the requirements for realizing the value of Web Services by providing a set of emerging best pra

Web Services Technologies and Trends

Web Services is the next evolution in distributed computing using XML as the means by which systems can expose and share computing functionality. The market for Web Services tools, comprised of Web Services Platforms, Application Development and Delivery Suites, and Operations Management is expected to grow to over $15.5 Billion by the end of 2005.

ZapNote: Plumtree

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