The I.T. industry is known for its buzz words. As new technologies come on the scene, they are heard on everyone's lips and looked to as panaceas for everything that troubles organizations. The latest word to capture the tech community's imagination is service-oriented architecture.
"SOA redefines the way internal systems are built, and how internal and external systems interact," says Michael Kuhbock, co-chairman and founder of the Integration Consortium.
But not everyone is looking to SOA to transform the way they approach their I.T. systems. Farm Credit Canada (FCC), for example, is taking a piecemeal approach to SOA and adopting it only where it makes sense for the Regina-based organization.
"We approach it on an as-need-be basis," says FCC's principal application architect Greg Hutchinson. The corporation has long taken an object-oriented approach to development. It is a solution that has worked, says Hutchinson, so he sees no reason to abandon the approach.
