SOA is here and now. According to Gartner, 60 per cent of enterprises will use SOA as their guiding principle when creating applications and processes by 2008. Moreover, SOAs are transforming traditional monolithic applications into services that allow flexibility, reusability and on-demand access. The mindset that applications should reside on a dedicated server is shifting to an SOA-based model that creates a virtual and dynamic environment.
However, with the enthusiasm for SOAs reaching fever pitch in the world of IT, important considerations are being lost in the excitement. The biggest factor that is being overlooked is the actual control that organisations have on their enterprise resources. The ability to share applications across networks relies not only on the optimal software infrastructure – where SOA provides the framework – but also a more efficient control of enterprise resources than is typical in today’s computing environments.
