SOA Integration: How to Avoid Endless Consolidation

Consolidating systems can be a good way for companies to improve efficiency and cut costs, particularly in the case of acquisitions. But, as this worst practice proves, SOA migration and SOA integration should not be done overnight, or all at once. And you should never select SOA consultants without first doing your homework.

The Idea: "Extreme Makeover SOA Edition: Let's Rip and Replace Everything"

Carson Office Supplies was growing at a phenomenal rate, acquiring 20 previously independent franchises in less than a year. Soon the company noticed a significant amount of overlap among its IT systems and business processes. As a result, it decided to integrate some of these systems by building a SOA. Carson Office Supplies dubbed this effort Project TROY.

The company then hired Wecan Consulting, which devised a comprehensive plan, involving a team of 160 to 200 people (i.e., burn rate like a dot-com startup), and software from 30 different vendors, including:

  • Plumtree Corporate Portal
  • BEA WebLogic
  • RSA ClearTrust
  • IONA Artix
  • Oracle Application Server
  • Sunflower Assets
  • Adobe Form Server (now Adobe LifeCycle Forms)
  • Oracle eBusiness Suite
  • ILOG JRules
  • Software AG Tamino XML Server
  • Network Inference Cerebra Server
  • Informatica PowerCenter and SuperGlue
  • Microsoft SharePoint Server
  • IBM Rational Suite
  • Actional Looking Glass and SOAPstation

Wecan Consulting fell consistently behind schedule, failing to deliver on its promised milestones. After massive team cutbacks, re-planning attempts, and scaling back the requirements, Wecan Consulting had to start over and completely redesign the SOA.

Wecan Consulting's new plan was to go completely COTS (commercial off-the-shelf) with point-to-point integrations. By this time, however, morale was low among Carson Office Supplies' IT team. After such a botched start, the IT team had little interest in pursuing a SOA and was dragging its heels. As a result, Carson Office Supplies had to wait and experience more pain before realizing any benefits of a SOA.

Why It Wasn't So Smart

SOA gives you the opportunity to use a best-of-breed approach, as well as leverage open standards. So, mixing and matching vendors that use open standards should work well. However, Project TROY was trying to do too much, too soon.

Although Project TROY did many things correctly, the complexity of the project was overwhelming—from the scope of the project to the number of vendors involved. Carson Office Supplies needed a more simplified, incremental approach to SOA implementation: probably via Web services adoption.

To make matters worse, Wecan Consulting, while a noteworthy firm, did not have much SOA experience and was learning along the way.

Finally, Carson Office Supplies was duped into forgoing a true SOA in favor of a point- to-point model, after being told that the point-to-point model would deliver the same benefits. The company ended up with a tight coupling and a second-rate integration solution, which is not the point of a SOA. Although this alternate strategy enabled all the systems to "talk," it did not deliver the same level (and therefore value) of Web service reuse and flexibility as a SOA.

How to Avoid SOA Integration Woes: Be Mindful of the Partners You Pick

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A Better Approach

Fortunately, SOA allows you to avoid a "big bang" or "rip and replace" approach. When thinking about any SOA, remember to ask yourself:

  • What is working?
  • What is not working?
  • What is delivering value?
  • What new business opportunity should we be pursuing?

Your SOA plan should cover migrating your entire system to a SOA, but remember that this process can take years. It's better to start instead with applications that are not working. Migrating or rebuilding these applications will deliver immediate benefits.

In addition, avoid rebuilding applications that are working and delivering value. You can incorporate their value in your SOA immediately by simply putting a Web service wrapper around them. This can be achieved by using an adapter or broker.

Moving forward, let your business needs dictate when and how to build new applications or new features.

Bottom line? Try to avoid any effort that does not add business value, such as redesigning or redeveloping an application that is already working well. Instead, make sure that your SOA strategy focuses on leveraging the business processes that deliver the most benefit to the company. Then look at the underlying components and applications for each business process. If some of the applications work well, just put a wrapper around them. If they are broken, or if you want to enhance the process, then that is a compelling reason to create a new service to provide that functionality.

In summary, make sure to do your homework when choosing a SOA integration partner. Just because a firm is large and well known, it doesn't mean that the company has all the SOA experience you require. If you are looking into SOA management, contact Actional. Actional has led the way in this field for more than six years – with a product line that governs

For More Information

How to avoid SOA integration headaches: watch the free webinar, Implementing a Successful SOA Pilot Program