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Service-Oriented Architecture For Apps Dev And Program Management Pros

Gary E Smith - THE SOA NETWORK — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 18:16:54 GMT

Topic Overview: Service-Oriented Architecture For Apps Dev And Program Management Pros

For a single, isolated solution delivery project, it's OK to think of service-oriented architecture (SOA) as just Web services (WS) standards for better application integration: Your application needs something from another one, and WS technology bridges the boundaries. However, across a portfolio of solutions, this view of SOA breaks down and can easily result in siloed, point-to-point Web services that solve only short-term, project-level problems. Longer-term application delivery benefits from SOA — for example, reduced time-to-market and lower development costs — require cross-project, portfolio-level strategy and planning. SOA is proven in the market — for the past three years, 70% of current SOA users have said they will do more SOA — but getting it right requires developers to step back and ensure that they truly understand how to think correctly about what SOA is and how it will add value.

For the Research Report:

Service-Oriented Architecture For Apps Dev And Program Management Pros

SOURCE: Forrester Research
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Project-Oriented SOA - SOA Magazine

Gary E Smith - THE SOA NETWORK — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 07:29:40 GMT

Project-Oriented SOA

Abstract: "Projects are the lifeblood of an IT department. Almost everything in IT is measured through a project lens. SOA, due to its global-centric nature, is often viewed as incompatible with project-based software delivery lifecycles. Thus, most companies find themselves with the dilemma of how to effectively advance an SOA initiatives and continue to deliver projects at the same time.

The solution is to combine service lifecycle management, architecture, SOA governance, funding, and SOA metrics into a single comprehensive program. The ultimate goal is to ensure that through addressing project needs services are being effectively designed and implemented and that leverage takes place and is verifiable and that the overall SOA program objectives are being achieved. This article introduces an effective technique for moving your SOA program forward through an incremental, project-based approach."

For the complete article:

http://www.soamag.com/I21/0808-2.asp

SOURCE: SOA Magazine
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For more resources on Service-Oriented Architecture see: THE SOA NETWORK

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Only 1 in 5 SOA Projects Actually Succeed

Gary E Smith - THE SOA NETWORK — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 16:35:15 GMT

Only 1 in 5 SOA Projects Actually Succeed

Despite its growing popularity and constant improvements in SOA technology, according to SOA survey done by Barton’s group Anne Thomas Manes,

...in-depth studies of 20 companies found a 50% complete failure rate, while another 30% were considered neither successful nor wholly failed... Many of them had deployed multiple successful projects, but most of those projects were focused on just one integration problem. It was just a bunch of Web services... The service is only built for one application and it’s never going to be used again

For the complete article:

http://www.infoq.com/news/2008/07/Only1

SOURCE: InfoQ

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For more resources on Service-Oriented Architecture see: THE SOA NETWORK

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Gary E. Smith
SOA Project Manager

IT RESOURCE NETWORK

THE BPM NETWORK | THE SAAS NETWORK | THE SOA NETWORK | THE WEB 2.0 NETWORK

A Program Management Methodology for SOA - SOA Magazine

Gary E Smith - THE SOA NETWORK — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 16:36:25 GMT

A Program Management Methodology for SOA

Abstract: Program management is a key part of any successful IT project. With SOA, the management of a "program of related projects" is often required when carrying out larger adoption initiatives. But even when your SOA project revolves around just a single solution, the management of the delivery of that solution should be part of a formal program.

In this article we describe a disciplined program management methodology [REF-1] for organizations attempting SOA projects. The approaches discussed are complementary to and build upon many established project management methodologies.

As part of the research carried out for this article, we analyzed 15 Fortune 10-1000 firms, with a focus on service deployment, integration of process and services architecture, and required organizational restructuring. Our findings confirm that organizations leading SOA projects with procedural and business requirements have more success than those leading their projects with technical functionality. (The results of this study are provided at the end of this article.)

For the complete article:

http://www.soamag.com/I17/0408-3.asp

SOURCE: SOA Magazine

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For more resources on Service-Oriented Architecture see: THE SOA NETWORK

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Gary E. Smith
SOA Project Manager

IT RESOURCE NETWORK

THE BPM NETWORK | THE SAAS NETWORK | THE SOA NETWORK | THE WEB 2.0 NETWORK

A New Foundation: SOA Implementation for Business Transformation

Gary E Smith - THE SOA NETWORK — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 14:37:39 GMT

A New Foundation: SOA Implementation for Business Transformation

"It wasn't just small changes that Wachovia's Corporate and Investment Banking (CIB) division was eyeing when it first looked to deploy a service-oriented architecture (SOA). Rather, it was a total transformation resulting from a mandate from the division's head to create a business-aligned IT group, according to Tony Bishop, SVP and director of product management for the CIB technology group."

A New Foundation: SOA Implementation for Business Transformation

SOURCE: Wall Street Technology

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For more resources on Service-Oriented Architecture see: THE SOA NETWORK

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Gary E. Smith
SOA Project Manager

IT RESOURCE NETWORK

THE BPM NETWORK | THE SAAS NETWORK | THE SOA NETWORK | THE WEB 2.0 NETWORK

Five Rules for Development-time SOA Governance

Gary E Smith - THE SOA NETWORK — Thu, 10 May 2007 08:25:37 GMT

Five Rules for Development-time SOA Governance
by Dr. Kelly Shaw, an analyst with Serina Software

These rules will help you reduce the risk of failed SOA initiatives.

Rule #1: The requirements for SOA-based development projects should focus first and foremost on the delivered applications, not the services.

Rule #2: Services should be re-used, re-factored, used from a third party where appropriate and built new only as a last resort.

Rule #3: Services need to be delivered with a comprehensive set of unit tests.

Rule #4: Always perform consumption-side tests before deploying a service into production.

Rule #5: Separate your production deployments from your consumption deployments.

For the complete article:

Five Rules for Development-time SOA Governance

SOURCE: Enterprise Systems

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Gary E. Smith
SOA Project Manager

Roles for Maintenance and Evolution of SOA-Based Systems

Gary E Smith - THE SOA NETWORK — Wed, 09 May 2007 10:44:55 GMT

Roles for Maintenance and Evolution of SOA-Based Systems

Development, evolution and maintenance of SOA-based systems demands rethinking of the traditional system evolution and maintenance roles. The key objective of this paper is to present preliminary ideas on the roles required for maintenance and evolution of SOA-based systems and to suggest areas of needed research.

Roles for Maintenance and Evolution of SOA-Based Systems

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Gary E. Smith
SOA Project Manager

Project Manager Survival Kit

Gary E Smith - THE SOA NETWORK — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 20:02:12 GMT

Project Manager Survival Kit

Software Project Management Tools: IBM's project manager survival kit provides useful tools, reviews, and tips including whitepapers and webcasts. Learn simple techniques to make software project management easier so you can create the best software products.

Discover how the IBM Software Development Platform can help you move your projects forward, move your bosses to cheers, and move you up the ladder to greater success. Insights and advice abound in this exclusive kit for project managers like yourself.

IBM created this Project Manager Survival Kit to cover important topics that can affect the success of any software project. It now includes the new Buyer's Guide to Software Development for the On Demand Enterprise as well as easy-to-digest white papers and informative Webcasts. Learn how the IBM Software Development Platform can give you the tools, services and best practices for success from start to finish, at every stage.

Get the Project Manager Survival Kit here

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Gary E. Smith
SOA Project Manager

Teaming up for SOA

Gary E Smith - THE SOA NETWORK — Sat, 10 Mar 2007 18:15:52 GMT

Teaming up for SOA

"Most organizations start down the road to SOA with a pilot project of some kind. The result is often a great technology learning experience and a handful of useful services upon which a related set of apps can be built and modified easily. But an isolated project seldom builds the skills needed to persuade multiple groups to collaborate on broader SOA development."

SOURCE: ComputerWorld

For the complete ComputerWorld Article:

Teaming up for SOA

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Gary E. Smith
SOA Project Manager

How to succeed with SOA

Gary E Smith - THE SOA NETWORK — Sat, 10 Mar 2007 08:40:56 GMT

How to succeed with SOA

"The ability of service-oriented architecture to rapidly assemble new applications and orchestrate multiple solutions comes from a commitment to reuse. But for that to work, it must be implemented enterprisewide, say the three internationally known, former META Group analysts.

The common approach of implementing SOA on a project-by-project basis fails to mandate the basic changes in development procedure that SOA requires. Developers may implement the standards that SOA has largely co-opted from the Internet, but they are free to reinvent existing services rather than reusing what already exists."

For the complete ComputerWorld Article:

SOURCE: ComputerWorld

How to succeed with SOA

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Gary E. Smith
SOA Project Manager

Best practices of the SOA Development Lifecycle - SearchWebServices

Gary E Smith - THE SOA NETWORK — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 18:35:47 GMT

Best practices of the SOA Development Lifecycle

"For example, in your SDLC process your goal is to have an automated mechanism by which people check things in and automatically do builds, and automatically do tests," she answered. "If you actually implement governance and compliance testing as part of those processes, then the development team doesn't have to do anything extra. They are simply following their standard process. Yet at the same time you're doing compliance testing. And you can feed information directly back to the developers saying 'You might have violated a couple policies here. Here's the recommended approach to resolve that.' "

SOURCE: SearchWebServices

Best practices of the SOA development lifecycle

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Gary E. Smith
SOA Project Manager

SOA the Easy Way (If That’s Possible)

Gary E Smith - THE SOA NETWORK — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 10:50:03 GMT

SOA the Easy Way (If That’s Possible)

In a research report about getting started with Service Oriented Architecture, Forrester analyst Randy Heffner warned that SOA strategy “carries heavy risks of being overly theoretical and academic.”

That is undoubtedly true, as plenty of companies have learned. Attempting to implement a ‘grand vision’ for SOA can be unwieldy enough to swamp the enterprise in myriad complexities.

For many companies, the question becomes: how can we realize the promise of SOA without developing and following an exhaustive 400-page platform plan?

In the word, Heffner says, the concept to keep in the forefront is “evolutionary.”

Along with keeping your approach evolutionary as opposed to revolutionary, Heffner recommends two key tenets in developing your SOA infrastructure:

1) Let the pain drive SOA investments. Service Oriented Architecture is a means to an end, Heffner notes – it’s not an end in itself. Focusing on the “pain point” – the very real problem that needs to be fixed – helps engender a productive conversation within the business that’s less likely to get bogged down in theory.

2) Use street-level strategy to tie near-term implementation to long-term vision. Notes Heffner in his report: “Rather than trying to decide upfront on a myriad of SOA strategy issues (e.g. repository strategy, enterprise service bus (ESB), SOA management), create a lightweight strategy that outlines and structures the range of SOA issues without deciding on specific answers to any of them.” In other words, a “street-level” strategy is one that stays loose – it has a direction but it’s not tied down. It’s ruled by pragmatic concerns that can change over time.

SOURCE: Datamation

SOA the Easy Way (If That’s Possible

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Gary E. Smith
SOA Project Manager

Automation: A New Imperative for SOA Application Success - SOA World Magazine

Gary E Smith - THE SOA NETWORK — Mon, 05 Feb 2007 14:26:50 GMT

Automation: A New Imperative for SOA Application Success

"For several years, software vendors have been creating development and infrastructure products for the latest IT architecture style - Service Oriented Architecture (SOA). Recognizing the immense value SOA can bring to IT, companies like BEA, IBM, and Microsoft have delivered products to help customers design and build SOA-based applications. These vendor-driven initiatives are beginning to sprout actual customer-developed applications that are built on the promise of SOA, such as better flexibility, agility and reuse."

Service Oriented Architecture is a powerful concept. It allows IT organizations and their related business organizations to work more efficiently. SOA applications will be more prevalent and managing them will remain critical. There are specific steps organizations can take to make SOA management work for them:

1) Make management a priority: Management shouldn't be an afterthought. Make sure that it's budgeted for when pulling together SOA projects - both in time and money.

2) Make a new decision: Managing SOA is a new problem, one that deserves true evaluation. You might decide to use one of your existing APM vendors, but don't just write them in. SOA presents unique challenges that existing tools find difficult to solve.

3) Start small: SOA is a change in philosophy that creates barriers to success. Don't add more by trying to run multiple applications out of the gate. Like other technology breakthroughs, your chances of success increase when dealing with a single problem.

4) Assume nothing: Don't assume that what you deploy is architected and coded like you designed it. Get runtime information to help determine what the real architecture looks like.

5) Communicate, communicate, communicate! Involve all of the key stakeholders and often. It's important for executives to see the value in the project, for line-of-business managers to see that their applications will run better, for IT management to see efficient operations, and for developers to see innovation. Keep them all in the loop from start to finish.

SOURCE: SOA World Magazine

View Article:

Automation: A New Imperative for SOA Application Success

Print Article:

http://soa.sys-con.com/read/329806_p.htm

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Gary E. Smith
SOA Project Manager

'First, do no harm,' guides Marriott SOA plans - SearchWebServices

Gary E Smith - THE SOA NETWORK — Mon, 05 Feb 2007 12:56:09 GMT

'First, do no harm,' guides Marriott SOA plans

T"he MBO approach to the business side starts with the COO and CIO and includes all levels of management. While IT notoriously faces difficulty communicating the value of SOA to business people, Whitridge offered a list of tips for bridging the chasm. To get the point across in meetings, he said he found it is important to make sure the list of objectives IT offers to the business side:

Is simple to understand and communicate
Ensures ability to set goals and measure them
Articulates what we have accomplished, what we are working on and what we have deferred
Includes organization and process – not just technology
Provides the business with realistic and affordable options
Avoids "over commit and under deliver"
Eliminates "boil the ocean" or "big bang" efforts "

SOURCE: SearchWebServices

'First, do no harm,' guides Marriott SOA plans

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Gary E. Smith
SOA Project Manager

SOA Projects Need to Be Systematic, Exec Says - ComputerWorld

Gary E Smith - THE SOA NETWORK — Mon, 05 Feb 2007 08:54:08 GMT

SOA Projects Need to Be Systematic, Exec Says

"Over the past nine years, Con-way Inc.’s SOA has evolved into an event-driven architecture that lets computer systems subscribe to, publish and process “events” — such as the receipt of an order — based on predefined business rules. Maja Tibbling, Con-way’s lead enterprise architect, discussed the SOA’s development in an interview with Computerworld at last week’s Open Group conference.

SOURCE: ComputerWorld

SOA Projects Need to Be Systematic, Exec Says

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Gary E. Smith
SOA Project Manager

Best Practices for SOA Management - IBM

Gary E Smith - THE SOA NETWORK — Sat, 03 Feb 2007 08:02:17 GMT

Best Practices for SOA Management

SOA Management provides best practices and software for managing and monitoring SOA composite applications and supporting infrastructure.

IBM Redbooks | Best Practices for SOA Management

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Gary E. Smith
SOA Project Manager

SOA Project Staffing Plan...Here are some Rough Guidelines - InfoWorld

Gary E Smith - THE SOA NETWORK — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 10:15:40 GMT

SOA Project Staffing Plan...Here are some Rough Guidelines

David Linthicum outlines the Who, What and How Many for a SOA Project.

SOA Project Staffing Plan...Here are some Rough Guidelines

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Gary E. Smith
SOA Project Manager

The Incremental Approach to SOA - NetManage

Gary E Smith - THE SOA NETWORK — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 10:17:15 GMT

The Incremental SOA - NetManage

NetManage Incremental SOA is a flexible and effective four-step methodology for understanding, planning and modeling legacy-based services and delivering maximum value from your SOA projects.

The solution is Incremental SOA
What is Incremental SOA? It is a sensible, phased, low-risk approach for creating an SOA for your organization. Download the white paper today and you’ll learn about the 4 critical steps for success with SOA.

Download the white paper

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Gary E. Smith
SOA Project Manager

The New SOA Opportunity - Sandhill Group

Gary E Smith - THE SOA NETWORK — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 07:45:39 GMT

The New SOA Opportunity

New customer research indicates that SOA adoption may be slower than expected. Vendors can capitalize by stepping up with expertise, governance and improved offerings.

Services-oriented architecture (SOA) is a far greater challenge than most companies realized when they began to adopt and deploy SOA. Rework, failed projects, and immature technologies have characterized many early user enterprise SOA deployments. Moreover, users often confuse such typical project benefits as application integration with the true, longer-term benefits of SOA, such as more responsive and agile application architectures and reuse of services.

A core driver of these challenges is a lack of IT and SOA planning and governance among user business and IT management. The results for user enterprises include increased complexities and costs, and dramatically reduced SOA benefits. The results for vendors are too-often frustrated and disappointed customers.

In order to help deliver SOA success, today’s software companies need to accept the reality of current SOA deployments and capitalize on the opportunity to offer appropriate products, governance and expertise.

SOURCE: Sandhill Group

Read more >>

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Gary E. Smith
SOA Project Manager