Do we really need SOA?

I've been a little less than enthused about all things SOA as of late....mainly because it seems like it is as easy to sell SOA as it is to sell snake oil, or magic diet pills, or a plan to get rick quick by investing in real estate foreclosures. Obviously, there is some pain that the fundamentals of SOA address. But, a solution system is service oriented by its very nature REGARDLESS of whether or not it was touted as SOA. It just is!

Consider the following: SOA is about aligning technology - including the IT infrastructure and the application portfolio - with business objectives. It isn't about standardized interfaces or making applications interoperable as *the* *primary* objective. Rather the objectives are to use IT as a tool to solve business challenges.

To solve these business challenges, we need:

• To increase speed of response of IT to the demands of business


• To lower development, integration and support costs


• To improve usability of applications, websites and portals


• To provide faster access to high quality information and IT services


• To support more timely, and better informed, decision making


• To automate standard processes, improve performance, quality and controls

The best practices of SOA enable these results. Things like:

• Reduced integration complexity through abstraction and standardized interfaces, which
  
  
  
  • Increases the ability to scale around defined service functions
  
  
  • Enables multiple access and delivery channels
  
  
  • Increases flexibility to address business change through component-based applications
  
  
• Normalized infrastructure and IT services, which
  
  
  
  • Positions applications and tools within the IT portfolio
  
  
  • Decouple application and business logic in the future architecture
  
  
  • Increases flexibility to address business change through component-based applications
  
  


• Commoditizes non-core IT capabilities
  
  
  
  • Minimizes costs to maintain multiple technologies and platforms, which
  
  
  • Reduces technology “free for all” and religious wars around technology decisions
  
  
  • Decreases time to complete of change requests
  
  
  
  

Just my thoughts.