Demystifying SOA (The truth vs. the fiction)
Demystifying SOA, Truth vs Fiction - Overview
SOA is a fine vine, but it’s usually planted in weak soil. Worse, it cannot hold up to the capricious nature of change.
It is quite common for an ERP provider to wrap the shortcomings of obsolete, rigid or poorly designed applications software code with that of new technology. The goal is to provide the latest “look” and effectively conceal or confuse users as to what’s underneath. This occurrence is likened to the antique roadster with a new chassis…and this is unfortunately the phenomenon occurring with SOA technologies. (eWEEK reported this in the summer of 2006 as putting “lipstick on a pig.” The colour may be very pretty, but what’s underneath is still underneath, and it is not the fault of SOA!).
Like any technology “grapevine” Agresso can support them all within its fertile soil foundation. Agresso has incorporated SOA to its solution as its newest grapevine to facilitate continued standardization.
Truth and Fiction of SOA
SOA has either been intentionally or unintentionally made confusing in the market – opening the door of interpretation for a thousand marketing spins. If companies don’t really know or understand what it is, and enough PR and glamour surrounds it, it will likely sell.
Here are some basic truths about SOA that will help to demystify it:
- Services-Oriented Architecture just means that information and business logic are encapsulated into modular pieces with standard interfaces. “Services” is the name for those pieces. (Simple!)
- XML (extensible Mark-UP Language) or Web Services, is the preferred language today because it is
open, standardized and uses the Internet. (Simple!) - Translating these services from proprietary (the previous binary format) into XML format is a lot of work, that’s why you see the two-year projections from ERP leaders to get it done. (Hard!)
Here are some basic “fictions” about SOA that the ERP leaders would rather keep in the dark:
- If the core “service” (i.e. the data/business logic contained in the “soil” level) is poorly designed, all you will achieve is great integration of poor services! Rigid data, rigid processes and rigid code that is the hallmark of the ERP leaders’ disparate foundation systems – will remain rigid, non-agile and incapable of supporting ongoing business agility;
- SOA is focused on releasing data and process that you have today. People-centric BLINC™ organizations continuously adjust the way they operate. Combining loosely-coupled applications will not facilitate ongoing business agility at the root data/process level that drives change;
- Whether you use Web Services/XML… (or the former language, “object-oriented programming” that combined data/processes via “object request brokers” or “remote procedure calls”)…SOA will not give you better, more agile, customizable information or processes. SOA will combine things…the good, the bad or the ugly.
Make no mistake, the ERP leaders have a clear understanding that SOA alone is no more or less than a sophisticated (and expensive) bandage over a wound that would be impossible to fix at the root level. That wound is a poor data model, the result of multiple disparate acquisitions and an inability for them to work effectively together. There has been a very aggressive blurring of the capabilities of SOA by the ERP leaders that SOA as a technology will provide business agility. It will not.
Agresso and SOA
Agresso’s VITA architecture supports SOA, and because of the inherently tight coupling and coding of Agresso’s business data/processes and delivery methodology as “one”…it will continue to deliver the richest instance of SOA and any other technology planted within its infrastructure data model soil. Agresso’s SOA capabilities will provide:
- Ease of process integration to other systems
- Ease of delivery (analytics/reporting) between other systems
- Elimination of data redundancies with other systems
- Improved “business context” to users of disparate systems
Since SOA is clearly the technology ‘pick of the day’ for the foreseeable future, getting it right is important. Agresso provides the best platform in the industry and will therefore deliver the industry’s best SOA capabilities. As for ERP leaders attempting to cover poorly crafted, disparate systems, buyers beware: If the core ERP system’s structure is ill-fitting, then branching it out to new and disparate modules will simply increase this malady AND the level of complexity. Organizations attempting to gain summary and detailed “drill down” information to plan, direct and control operations will be disappointed in their instance of SOA. Extending a data structure that is at odds with organizational business processes will aggravate, not ameliorate the quest for better business agility.
According to the January 15, 2007 issue of CIO magazine, there stands to be a lot of disappointed people who select SOA solutions from the ERP giants who have poor data/process backbones. In a survey of CIO’s entitled, “Getting the Most from SOA,” respondents named their SOA objectives:
- 79 percent seek improved agility and business alignment;
- 69 percent seek reduced IT complexity and maintenance costs;
- 56 percent seek improved user productivity;
- 52 percent seek better business analytics, delivered faster;
- 46 percent seek data consolidation;
- 31 percent seek real time views into the supply chain;
- 13 percent seek outsourced IT.
The Bottom Line: Spend Dilemna
The Bottom Line: Spend Dilemna
Organizations currently deployed on the leading SAP, Oracle, Microsoft and Lawson solutions have perhaps become inured to non-stop spending, and anticipate that there is no way out of this needspendneed- spend dilemma.
As the Feb. 14, 2007 edition of eWEEK reports in its article “SAP Skills Pay off Big for IT Pros,” “Pay for non-certified IT skills grew eight percent in 2006….Among non-certified IT skills, professionals with SAP specialization raked it in 2006, their salaries increasing 15.2 percent.”
People-centric, BLINC™ organizations in particular need to do a thorough examination of the post implementation capabilities of their chosen ERP provider – and decide where to draw the line on this continual spending.
Agresso is a world class alternative, and provides the right ERP framework for Businesses Living IN Change.