ronald schmelzer keynote address

Copyright © 2007, ZapThink, LLC 1

Finding the Lowest Risk Path to SOA Adoption

Ron SchmelzerSenior AnalystZapThink, LLC


The Problems of IT are The Problems of Business


Business Constant: Change

CHANGE

CompetitionCompetition

Changing Changing MarketplaceMarketplace

Customer Customer DemandsDemands

Mergers & Mergers & AcquisitionsAcquisitions

Optimizing Optimizing ProcessesProcesses

New New TechnologiesTechnologies

Business Business PartnersPartners

A Business is Never A Business is Never STATICSTATIC


We’ve had IT challenges for years …


… but even after yesterday’s promises…


… we still have the same IT mess, only worse.


The Business Inflexibility Trap

• Inflexibility is the Mother of All Business Problems– If you’re flexible enough, you can solve all the other

problems

• Information Technology (IT) is an impediment to business change– It wasn’t supposed to be that way!


• Companies require Business Agility…

»Responding quickly to change, and

»Leveraging change for competitive advantage

J

Business Agility

Agility is the key to innovationAgility is the key to innovation


If you are in a Hole, Stop Digging!

• IT Decision Making’s Fatal Flaw:– Choice between “take some extra time & money and do

it right” vs. “give me what I want the cheapest & fastest way” – guess which wins?

• Repeat enough times, leads to the IT “Rat’s Nest”


The Integration “Rat’s Nest”

FBT PAY GNTS

TRDS

Client

Customs

RREIPS Integrated A/C Refunds

RBADef

PaymentsExcise

CR

PKI

ECI ADD AWA ELS

Client Staff RemoteStaff

TAXAGENTS

GCI

Call Centers

WOC

CCD

TASS

StaffPhone

ComplianceStaff

BOA

Ref material

Bus. Intel

NTS A/c

BEP

CDCCCWMS

BANK

DDDR

1

Data…….

Penalty

Business

IVR

1


Service Orientation:A Business Approach

• It’s not about connecting things, it’s about enabling business processes & continual change

• The core business motivation is business agility

• Rather than “rip and replace” old systems – make them work better together

• It’s not about technology, integration, or middleware


SOA shifts the way we think

Architecture makes it workMiddleware makes it work

Leverage Heterogeneous Technology

Favor Homogeneous Technology

Compose ServicesIntegrate Silos

Loosely Coupled, Agile and Adaptive

Tightly Coupled

Designed to changeDesigned to last

Interactive and iterative development

Long development cycle

Metadata OrientedCode Oriented

Service Oriented ApproachTraditional Distributed Approach


Measuring ROI for SOA

Source: Wipro

• Reduced licensing & configuration costs

• Cost for Maintenance & Changes

• Operations Cost

• Cost of future integrations

• Phased replacement of legacy middleware

Integration Cost Asset Reuse Business Agility Business Risk

• Cost for development of new business process flows and composite applications

• Overall staffing

• Greater ability to outsource

• Portfolio cleanup

• Improved time to market & responsive customer service

• Ability for business users to directly control business process definition & management

• Ability to easily integrate with new business partners and suppliers

• Provide value to the partners and suppliers which could result in new business opportunities

• Ability to capture the new revenue streams

• Improved Business & IT alignment that helps in intelligent planning

• Cost of enforcing & ensuring regulatory compliance

• Reduction of liability


Many Perspectives on SOA

• All views relevant & important• Service-Oriented Architects must have all

perspectives

Data

Services

TechnologyBusiness Processes


Web Services are the Trees….

Service Orientation is the Forest


Traditional EAI, B2Bi Pkg. ImplementationsWeb Services "Adapters"

The Economics of Integration

Initial Costs Customization ChangesMaintenance

Custom Integration

Copyright (C) 2002 ZapThink, LLC

Rel

ativ

e C

osts

The Relative Costs of Different Integration Approaches

Service-Oriented Integration

Service-Oriented Integration


There’s No Such Thing as a SOA Wizard!

• Click…click…click…done! You now have a SOA!

• Will never happen because…– SOA best practices are too

general– Each organization has a

different environment, both technical and cultural

The architect’s answer is usuallyThe architect’s answer is usually““it depends”it depends”


SOA Challenges

Source: Wipro


Challenge: Inertia in the Organization

• Architecture doesn’t have features and business executives pay for features!

• Moving to SOA means breaking down silos and sharing resources

• The technology change is easy – it’s the human change that’s the hard part!


Challenge: Balancing Control & Empowerment

• Answer: Governance• Establishing, communicating, and

enforcing policies, providing visibility into the levels of compliance, and dealing with issues

• Not just governance of SOA…governance with SOA

• But…avoid “big brother” effect

Who likes to be governed?Who likes to be governed?


Challenge: Reuse = Sharing

We all learned to share in kindergarten…We all learned to share in kindergarten…

But by the time we get to the working world, we But by the time we get to the working world, we forget how!forget how!


How Do You Eat an Elephant?

• One bite at a time!

• Don’t expect to have all the answers on day one

• Take a step-by-step approach, but…– Top-down only: have the plan, may not

be able to execute

– Bottom-up only: build Services, may not be reusable

• SOA planning must be both– Develop the vision (but not the details)

ahead of time

– Service development should be iterative

• Show business value at each step


The ZapThink SOA Roadmap


ZapThink’s SOA Implementation Roadmap

Heterogeneous Systems with Proprietary Interfaces

Manage Services

Implement the SOA Metamodel

Service-Oriented ProcessSemantic Integration

Dynamic Service Discovery

Secure Service Interfaces

Wrap Legacy Systems in Services Interfaces

Service-Oriented Enterprise

Enterprise SOA Buildout

Mission-Critical SOA

SOA Pilots

“Grass Roots” Web Services Implementations

Create a Governance Framework

Contract-First Development

Cross-Departmental SOA


SOA Pilots

• A few high ROI Services• Build acceptance for SOA• Get team up to speed• Work out the kinks• Pilot the governance model• Part of an iterative approach to SOA

• Piloting only the Services instead of the architecture• Remember, the pilot is one step on the roadmap

DANGER! Avoid the SOA Pilot PitfallDANGER! Avoid the SOA Pilot Pitfall


Building SOA the Right Way

• SOA is all about continuous and sometimes unpredictable change

• Development issues

– How to handle versioning?

– How to handle metadata management?

– How to develop changing policies?

• Runtime issues

– Service availability

– Policy enforcement

– Guarantee service-level agreement

– Maintain low TCO


Role of the Architect

• Where is the architect?– Growth of the Enterprise

Architecture Team

• Should have dotted-line responsibility to the CIO– Avoid the Ivory Tower!

• Become the Master of Best Practices– Know the methodologies and approaches– Best practices, not software, is where the

innovation and opportunities remain!


Ownership of Services

• Shared Services cross organizational boundaries

• Siloed IT management styles are becoming obsolete

• The new role for enterprise architects


How do you Budget?

• Who pays for Service development?

• Who pays for Service changes?

• Should architects have their own budget?

Revenge of the Revenge of the chargebacks!chargebacks!


Planning for Change

• Why middle management is resisting

• How enterprise architecture helps

• Incremental SOA is the way to go!


Change & Version Mgmt: Multiple Levels

• Loosely-coupled systems: Lots of simultaneous change

• Service Implementation Change– Changing how you build and run the Service

• Service Contract Change– Changing how to define and communicate Service

capabilities• Service Policy Change

– Changing the rules by which you create, access, and compose Services

• Data Schema Change– Changing the language of data

• Service Infrastructure Change– Embracing ongoing heterogeneity

• Business Process Change– The Business keeps changing, so your architecture

needs to keep working!State ofthe Art!


How to Think Service-Oriented

• Think of IT as an asset and the business as processes composed of Services

• Think of SOA as an approach for dealing with frequent, and often unpredictable change… in both business and IT.

• Think of integration as a byproduct of Service composition


Thank You!