Speaking at ITWeb`s annual service-oriented architecture (SOA) and business process management conference in Sandton Sun yesterday, many agreed: SOA is the next big thing in IT architecture.
Gautham Viswanathan, VP of strategic operations, Tibco worldwide, explained IT evolution. Monolithic architecture gave way to client-server (sharing), then user interfaces were separated using Web applications, to the present trend and need for SOA, he said.
"SOA goes further than the sharing of data," he said. "It involves the sharing of behaviour."
Business and IT
"In the past, packaged software has caused business and IT to be disparate, with IT struggling to keep up with business requirements," explained Neil Macehiter, partner at IT-business alignment advisory firm, Macehiter-Ward-Dutton. "SOA resolves this."
In fact, Viswanathan explained, research shows companies see "faster reaction to changes" as the largest benefit of SOA.
Macehiter believes the IT/business disconnect is primarily focused on four areas: the high cost and risk of technology integration, the difficulty of getting to the right information at the right time, the time and effort involved in systems modification, and the fact that IT expenditure is fixed and difficult to see return on investment from.
Data not aligned
[VIDEO]"Companies need to move away from data-centric architecture," said Viswanathan. "As it stands, data is not aligned with business needs."
He further explained that this type of architecture, although allowing for data sharing, has processes locked into the applications, and integration is seen as a mere afterthought.
"It has even been referred to as 'architecture for extortion`," he said.
Three fractures
According to Macehiter, although the symptoms are often different, there are three distinct fractures that exist in most businesses. These fractures can be found between types of information, namely structured and unstructured; process support, namely stable and dynamic processing; and user experience in desktop versus Web-based applications.
"These fractures should not exist and need to be merged," he concluded.
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