A Call to Action For SOA Developers

A new whitepaper written by David Linthicum discusses two important ideas about SOA that are not often discussed together: the real value of SOA to businesses and a core SOA technology called process configuration that is used to create SOA applications. This new white paper combines these two ideas into a single discussion as a way of making the case that creating SOA-based applications is not complicated or expensive as is commonly thought.

Linthicum first makes the case that reuse – what most people originally thought was the core value of using SOA techniques – has not proved to be real, tangible value to business. Instead, Linthicum argues, agility – the ability to respond rapidly to changing business conditions – has become the real payoff for developers and managers who deploy SOA techniques.

"Today, improving core business processes is an urgent need in most organizations because they must be responsive to shifting and uncertain economic conditions," said David Linthicum, principal consultant, David S. Linthicum, LLC. "It is indisputable that SOA-based application development delivers the agility businesses require. What we have set out to prove in this document is that the notion that SOA-based development is complex and resource-hungry is incorrect. With recent advantages in standards-compliant technology and products, it is possible to gain the benefits of SOA quickly and affordably."

The white paper goes on to assert that the idea of “process configuration,” also known as “process orchestration” is the core SOA development technique that leads directly to the desired level of business agility. Furthermore, Linthicum argues that process orchestration using standards like BPEL has become far easier for Java developers than ever before, given the progress that’s been made in products that implement SOA standards. New, all-in-one design, development and deployment environments like ActiveVOS from Active Endpoints are used as an example of the rapid progression of the state-of-the-art.

Finally, the white paper concludes with a “call-to-action” that challenges managers and developers to abandon their assumptions that SOA development is complex and expensive and encourages them to adopt today’s SOA-based products.

Leveraging Process Configuration within the Context of SOA is available for free here. It is not necessary to register to download the whitepaper.