Service Oriented Architecture
As organizations grow, their business processes become embedded within a collection of heterogeneous applications and services. Applications become dependent upon each other and they are often linked together through specifically defined point-to-point connections. Over time the point-to-point integration evolves into a mesh of connections that form a rigid architecture that is difficult and expensive to maintain. As a result, complexity and cost increase when adding and modifying business processes. This puts additional pressure on the relationship between business and IT.
Through the introduction of a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), organizations can begin to address these challenges. While an SOA can mean different things to different people, Chariot believes that at its core, an SOA consists of loosely coupled services that become the building blocks for higher level business processes. Business services can be defined either by leveraging existing IT assets and service-enabling them, or by introducing new services into the organization. The key objective is to abstract the underlying technology from the higher-level business processes. This provides an environment for business analysts to focus on business processes and not the enabling technologies. Through the combination of these services, business functionality can be quickly and efficiently assembled. This not only improves time to market, agility, and re-use, but also provides a migration path for replacing legacy applications. This helps to align the needs of the business with the services of IT.
There are many challenges and potential pitfalls when an organization chooses to move towards an SOA such as:
- Lack of SOA Governance
- Obstacles to reorganizing around SOA
- Service-enablement of existing applications
- Creation of large projects that take too long to implement
Chariot's evolutionary approach allows you to avoid such pitfalls, from the identification of business goals all the way through the implementation of a proof-of-concept using our powerful and sophisticated SOA Lab. We begin by helping you identify the business goals for moving to an SOA. Once goals are defined, Chariot will help to review the relevant business processes and begin to decompose them for subsequent identification of services. It is important to recognize that not every functional unit becomes a service. More likely candidates for service enablement involve functionality that is leveraged by multiple business processes, thereby increasing asset reuse and business agility. Once service candidates have been identified, Chariot will work with you to define projects that will quickly yield service implementations based on expected ROI. Our expertise in lightweight architectures and experience in service-enabling applications make us the ideal partner in migrating toward an SOA.
