As part of its 2-year-old effort to move legacy mainframe systems to a service-oriented architecture (SOA), Sabre Holdings Corp. in May began dispatching "reuse advocates" to work closely with all of its development groups. The goal was to encourage developers to tap the travel company's growing registry of services for new projects.
These advocates are typically senior quality assurance or other technical leads identified by their managers as people most likely to influence developers to adapt to changes inherent in building an SOA.
"The biggest chore has been getting people to have a reuse mind-set," says Mike Missler, program manager of the reuse initiative at the Southlake, Texas-based company. "Most developers would rather develop from scratch. There is a lot of resistance."
However, he adds, Sabre's efforts are gaining traction, bolstered by advocates who provide developers with examples of reusable business logic and encourage them to add their own work to the registry.
