Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) was one of the hottest topics in enterprise software in 2005, and it is set to continue to generate a huge amount of interest again in 2006 as more and more people look to it to help them deliver IT which is more responsive to the needs of business. However, although some industry analysts predict that SOA is soon to become a mainstream proposition, there’s still a lot of confusion and misunderstanding out there in industry about what SOA is, and why it’s important. SOA is a big and important idea, and I’m hoping that 2006 sees a bit more reflection on the topic. The more misunderstanding there is, the more opportunities will be missed, and the more challenges and risks will go unmanaged.
With this series of articles, I hope I can help clarify the opportunities and challenges that come with embarkation on a serious SOA initiative. In each article, I’ll be looking at how organisations can use SOA to drive more business value from the IT they use and the way they use it.
