SOA reduces integration costs

Many times business applications typically reflect a software vendor's opinion of how a business process should be performed. Since vendor opinions and real-world processes often do not match, many systems fail to support actual business operations. Easy examples of this can be seen in the big ERP systems that are implemented and "customized" for many millions of dollars only to need more rounds of "customization" with every new release.

One of the goals of Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) is to change the way enterprises deploy applications to support business processes. Using things like Orchestration and Business Process Management technology teams pull together the needed connections to components with a business flow based on how business is performed. Then when business changes (I know, I know.. that never happens...) you simply change the wiring. Of course, that is the goal... in order for it to be a reality some things need to happen. For a list of some of what I think needs to change look at my previous series on SOA changes.

What do you get for all of this effort?

Essentially, you get reduced integration expense. There are of course other benefits, but from a business POV this is what you get. It could be as simple as a reduced integration cost with other systems and future systems, or changing systems. It could be increasing reuse of assets; always a good thing to use something that exists vs build it from scratch each time. Increased customer responsiveness in the ability to change and modify business process more dynamically. You even get a reduction in risk, both business and project level risk, because you are dealing with smaller components that may already exist and allow for localized changes. But, as I started this paragraph, it all boils down to lower integration costs that enable all of these things.

Zapthink recently published an interesting article on the REAL costs of integration as part of their justification for SOA. The most valuable think in the article for me was the picture of integration costs by phase. Go check it out.

The REAL costs of integration - ZapThink