Delivering an SOA strategy in tough times: Is your SOA strategy running out of gas?

By kpuckett on June 25, 2008 | Kristen's Light Look at ChainBuilder ESB | | | Trackbacks (1) | Next | Previous

An economic downturn can quickly transform the dreamy ideology of Service Oriented Architecture into just an expensive IT diversion.  With miles of rough economic road still ahead, it seems like some SOA initiatives are grinding to a halt as organizations wait for more bountiful times when they can invest.  It's like our SOA strategy ran out of gas.

Reforms are ahead.  You may be surprised that there are excellent low cost options to pump more functionality into your service-oriented architecture, including open source solutions, like ChainBuilder ESB. 

Here are 3 tips to help keep your SOA strategy going through the tough times:

1.  Review Your Portfolio

What application assets do you have in-house?  Consider both the application's value and the expertise to maintain them as part of the equation.  Determine what information would be valuable as a shared commodity between applications; these are the high-return connections you should attack first.  To implement these key integration points, your task becomes choosing a tool that builds on the talents you have in-house or that can be very easily acquired.

2.  Manage Your Expenses

One of the hidden costs of an SOA restructure is the need to hire professional consulting services to perform the configuration effort.  Selecting a technology that is designed simply, with easy to follow graphical layouts and drag and drop functionality, like ChainBuilder ESB, allows your existing staff to quickly learn and become proficient in the configuration of your SOA environment, saving both initial and ongoing maintenance costs.  Selecting a tool designed for rapid deployment can also cut costs by shrinking project schedules and reducing the demand on internal resources.

3. Boost Your Return

When selecting technology in a bear economy, you want to keep the initial cash outlay low.  Open source software is an inexpensive means to leverage additional dividends from existing applications.  The goal is to continue to exploit the value of your legacy applications by blending that asset into your existing portfolio of investments.  Open source is like free gas to keep your SOA initiative moving.

Free is good.  Get started.