Smart-Enough SOA? 'Decision Services' Will Make It So

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December 11, 2007

Smart-Enough SOA? 'Decision Services' Will Make It So

What is the connection between enterprise decision management (EDM) and service-oriented architecture? Is there a connection? Should there be a connection?

ebizQ colleague James Taylor, co-author of "Smart (Enough) Systems,", has connected the dots between "smart-enough systems" and service-oriented architecture in a new article, published in SOA Magazine.

This convergence will be seen in the form of "decision services" that will be available as part of SOA. As James puts it, decision services are "applications in your application portfolio or services in your service inventory that automate and manage highly targeted decisions that are part of your organization's day-to-day operation." A decision service can exist "a component or service that answers a business question for other services."

Not only can decision services help in the process of automating decision making, but they also can serve as a "single point of decision making throughout all your systems and processes," James adds. As a result, improvements and enhancements need only be focused on tweaking the specific service or services -- rather than mucking around with the back-end systems in an effort to improve business intelligence. "Decision services can also eliminate the time, cost, and technical risk of trying to reprogram many systems simultaneously to keep up with changing business requirements."

Many industry watchers have been casting about in an effort to identify the "killer application" for SOA -- the business case that will cause executives' eyes to light up and get the to exclaim, 'Aha! So that's how SOA will help us!" I think James Taylor has identified that killer application.

Posted by joemckendrick in Business Process Management | Digg This | Add to del.icio.us