Successful planning of SOA: Building Your SOA Roadmap

A goal should be set before any great journey begins, and it is no exception when the enterprise decides to implement SOA. As with the pioneers in the carriage, it is unknown what awaits and how to reach the destination. To be successful, you must evaluate your strengths and weaknesses, identify clear directions, select a route, and then reassess the route as you move along this route. In short, you must create a unique roadmap for your journey.

What is an SOA roadmap? Why do I need an SOA roadmap?

Service-oriented architecture is an IT strategy that organizes the decentralized functions contained in enterprise applications into interoperable standards-based services that can be quickly combined and reused according to business requirements. The benefits of SOA will only emerge if the long-term and short-term needs of the enterprise are balanced. This balance can be maintained by specifying a set of organizational, financial, operational, design, and delivery guidelines when SOA is introduced. But the "big bang" approach is undesirable, and it is important to follow a step-by-step learning curve and choose a reciprocating and progressive way to deploy the schema changes. In general, the SOA roadmap provides a reciprocating, step-by-step approach that allows you to draw (re-draw) your business's unique planning as it progresses.

Your SOA roadmap should contain 3 key features:

Maturity: The SOA roadmap should be an "active document" that is constantly integrated into experience and lessons. As the SOA roadmap matures, your SOA actions reach a more subtle level in a manageable way. The creation of an SOA roadmap should begin by assessing the organization's current capabilities and requirements for SOA. This process can be used as a starting point using Bea's online self-assessment tool.

Scope: The complete SOA roadmap should contain 6 domains (as shown in Figure 1). There are clear boundaries between these 6 domains, but they are still interrelated and interdependent. The implementation of each domain is the cornerstone of the success of an enterprise-level SOA initiative. The SOA roadmap should clearly define the boundaries of SOA actions and define a clear and flexible time frame for achieving SOA goals. These goals should be dispersed into multiple manageable phases, and then be implemented in a reciprocating and progressive manner.

Quality: Your roadmap will remain relevant throughout the SOA initiative by using a "learning and tuning" process at each milestone, with a reciprocating approach. To ensure the quality of the SOA roadmap, communicate and validate among all stakeholders and solicit feedback from the parties.

Figure 1. BEA Domain Model

Steps to build an SOA roadmap

The development of the SOA roadmap is divided into 4 phases: SOA planning, SOA Maturity Assessment, SOA Outlook and SOA roadmap definitions.

SOA planning

This phase organizes and defines SOA actions. Stakeholders participate in this process through communication and briefings, and set priorities and parameters for consistent adoption. Because this stage involves the entire enterprise staff, clear, full communication is very important. In this phase, the tasks to be completed include:

Define the scope of the SOA.

Identify boundaries and establish cooperation with other IT initiatives.

Demonstrate the business justification for SOA appropriately.

Demonstrate the interface between existing business actions and future business actions.