The business impact of SOA

Here`s something to think about: for the first time in computing history, we are no longer tied to a monolithic architectural approach to application development. Service-oriented architecture (SOA) can turn business functions into reusable services that any application can use - regardless of the technology or systems that execute the service, the type of application that uses the service, or the medium people use to access the application with the service.

Ideally, if IT does the tough work of creating a service-oriented architecture, their enterprise will be able to connect all information systems and deliver any resource when and where it is needed.

And the winners will ultimately be the users - who will have the power to personalise technology and applications, based on their needs and the unique ways in which they work. A new Attachmate white paper, The User-Organised Enterprise, explores what is driving the change toward user empowerment in the enterprise and how it`s all taking shape.

Increased expectations are redefining business in every arena - with customers, partners and employees. Competition has forced IT departments to focus on more efficiencies at lower costs, higher productivity rates from employees and faster delivery of information. But the catch is that IT also has to work with existing technological investments. Expectations are high. Organisations that are trying to edge out the competition will help evolve the technology to achieve the flexibility and long-term cost savings of an SOA.

The monolithic architectural approaches to building applications, as well as proprietary approaches to application design, have never allowed for the constant changes that business organisations go through - or for the unique requirements of different business units within an organisation. Packaged enterprise applications marketed as `best practice` are instead `one size fits all` solutions that don`t really fit.

The result is a frustration among users and business units, and also a rise in rogue IT projects - where individual business units fund, develop and deploy applications in the hopes that a workable solution can be found - without having IT organisations involved or without IT dictating to the business unit which applications to use. Knowledge workers are capable of making decisions and adjusting workflow to meet customer needs. The expectation is that their desktop and enterprise applications should do the same.

The user-organised enterprise is about creating a balance between what IT delivers and what the business needs. You have to start by thinking about your knowledge workers as the drivers of your business - not simply end-users of business applications.

The white paper outlines five distinct divisions in a user-organised enterprise:

1. Personalisation - The idea that the system and the application experience should be personalised to meet the needs of each user. The advantage of personalising for individual knowledge workers? A higher level of adoption and end-user productivity.

2. Exception handling - How individuals deal with the instances where neither the business process nor the application predicted an issue - and therefore did not account for it. Most applications weren`t built to handle exceptions, yet customer satisfaction is linked to how quickly you can handle exceptions.

3. User experience - In general, by the time a user interface is defined, the user experience has already been dictated by the application. Why not define the user experience first?

4. Evolution - The IT gap is the chasm between what business needs and what it can deliver. So business units in a user-organised enterprise have to drive and evolve user experiences and interactions, business processes, workflows and business rules.

5. Control - IT`s top priority is to maintain control over the technology and infrastructure so it all works together. Rogue IT projects make that a major challenge. A user-organised enterprise approach is to give business units the ability to make changes to the user interface, for example, while IT keeps control of the integrity of the information.

The emergence of SOA is making the user-organised enterprise possible. The key is to make the enterprise infrastructure transparent, so that information can be used regardless of its source. SOA separates the user interface from the implementation of business functions, enterprise information and business processes. Today`s tools and technology can create composite applications that accommodate the goals of a user-organised enterprise.

Changing your perspective, thinking about the end-user first - what problems are they trying to solve, and how to design applications that allow for adaptation - will move you toward a user-organised enterprise. By empowering your users you can better meet their needs - and also provide better service to your customers.

We`re at the cusp of a new computing paradigm called service-oriented architecture - where business logic and data are segmented into logical business functions and hidden behind a reusable service that can reside anywhere. Learn more about this by viewing the Webcast, SOA and the Impact to the User-Organised Enterprise, with Yefim Natis, featured Gartner analyst, at http://www.accelacast.com/attachmate.

At http://www.accelacast.com/attachmate you can also download the full version of the white paper, The User-Organised Enterprise.

Attachmate solutions help you take advantage of SOA as a platform for the user-organised enterprise, delivering solutions that overcome infrastructure and technology barriers to meet user demands. Our Synapta service-enablement solutions leverage your host assets and securely expose them as reusable services. More details are available at www.synapta.com and www.attachmate.com Call 800 426 6283 or (425) 644 4010 to speak with a specialist. Contact us: http://www.attachmate.com/en-us/worldwide/