Alphacourt: December 2007 Archives

I'm sure many of you are either contemplating joining or actually sitting on the SOA bandwagon with high hopes of delivering the business benefit that we as IT professionals promise to our lords and (pay)masters on a regular basis. In case some of you are unsure of the true benefits or how to quantify them for budgetary purposes, here are some 'home truths' gleaned from real activity out in the wild.

• SOA can save money. But not in the beginning. One of the key benefits promised for SOA is re-use of the assets and services developed. One obvious consequence of this is that re-use is a benefit gained from the SECOND project onwards, but not the first. The business case for SOA requires a more holistic approach to benefits realisation over a longer period, e.g. reducing Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) for the key processes delivered using SOA.

• You can't buy SOA. SOA is not a product; it is a set of architectural concepts to develop a framework, a set of standards and (hopefully) a governance model. You may buy specific tools and services that are SOA-enabled, but this should only be when you already have the Architecture understood and agreed.

• Web Services are not SOA.  Most of the hype around SOA has been geared towards the development of XML and SOAP messages using HTTP. Web Services can be used as part of the delivery of rich business services with a Service Oriented Architecture, but SOA can exist and deliver benefit quite happily without Web Services.  Many companies have managed to use Web Services to create another island of development standards that are not part of any enterprise architecture - typically increasing the chaos within IT delivery rather than improving the quality.

We will be publishing more war stories and examples of good and bad practice in future blogs.

 John Moe

It has been months in the planning and is now unleashed on the world to show off the wonderful new services we offer, and also to highlight the excellent work we have been delivering for the past ten years. 

Seasoned visitors will be stunned by the cutting edge design and professional look to the site.  However, beyond the cosmetics, we now provide more depth, functionality and 'stickiness' to make your visits more productive and pleasurable.  The main highlights are as follows:

• A clear articulation of the Business Focus services and thought leadership content that we have become (in)famous for in the BPM and Process Improvement space.
• An expansion of technical services to encompass not only our deep (and crisp) WebSphere expertise, but also a wealth of help and support for those organisations struggling with understanding and delivering benefit from Service Oriented Architecture (SOA).
• A registration system to give you personalised access to our new events, newsletters and update service, so you don't miss any important news from Alphacourt.
• More and better education and training both for Business and Technical users and professionals.
• Better navigation through a variety of means - drop-down menu, side menus, site search, a tag cloud, and smarter 'next steps' on all pages.
• Regular updates will ensure that there is always something new and interesting every time you visit.

Well, I hope you enjoy looking around this new site.  We are very keen to have your feedback - please use the various hooks on the site to contact us and tell us what you think.  We will be offering a bottle of champagne for the best feedback or suggestion we receive each quarter that helps us make your browsing a better experience.

That's it for now.  We will use this blog to give you our finger on the pulse of the world of integration.  So please come back for more!

 
John Moe