Undoubtedly, the local as well as global IT industry is on the road towards establishing improved investments in assets as well as improving overall service delivery. This roadmap has various components which includes hardware investments, management software and application development investments.
It is also within these components that service-oriented architecture (SOA) plays a role. However, in saying this it is important to remember that as part of the drive to improve IT utilisation, the above components must form one collective effort.
Looking particularly at the local scenario, we`re currently seeing - like any other country - that South African businesses are investing in strategies that have proven to reduce capital expenditure while at the same time improving IT efficiencies and service delivery - highlighting the above stated roadmap.
More particularly, these strategies are revolving around hardware consolidation, which to a certain extent lay at the core of computing on-demand. If we touch on virtualisation, we already see it impacting the way we host software applications.
Quite obviously resource over-provisioning comes into play when implementing the above roadmap which is why companies should invest in architecture skills and architectural planning processes. Also, ensure that you combine the various functions of IT, ie hardware, applications, management software into the planning process.
SOA is not a one-dimensional strategy and if treated that way we will not have learned from previous enterprise architecture mistakes.
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