Walk before you run

Companies who have forged ahead and implemented some form of service-oriented architecture (SOA) advise others yet to take the plunge to take modest steps.

InfoWorld reports that senior executives at medium and large US companies recommend a project that is small, well-defined and one "that you have influence over" for anyone considering an SOA project.

But the largest battles will be political, warned the execs. "With the adoption of SOA, mid-level staff are seeing some of their responsibilities subsumed by the technology and they're not happy about it."

Presenting legacy data as a service is what SOA is all about, but make sure that the network can handle it.

Newsfactor takes a look at the network implications of a new architecture, particularly one where a master data manager (MDM) has been installed.

Corporate adoption of information as a service is the next leap into the SOA pond. Beware - the network implications are subtle but have significant corporate impact and need to be assessed before putting that first toe in the water, the article warns.

A new report from Gartner says the "big four" vendors of CRM are more interested in accommodating SOA than before.

"The study explains that the hype surrounding SOA, in addition to its promise of flexibility, has left more companies desiring this architecture and more vendors looking to update their applications for SOA," says XWebservices.

"The study focuses on the SOA development plans for what it describes as the 'four leading CRM vendors': Microsoft, Oracle/Siebel, SAP, and Salesforce.com."

Thanks to DestinationCRM, InfoWorld, XWebservices and Newsfactor.