Joe McKendrick, ebizQ's SOA in Action Blogger, is a nationally published author and consultant
with deep knowledge and insights regarding trends and developments in
the technology industry. He is a contributing editor to a number of
national and international publications and Websites including
Database Trends & Applications, ZDNet, and Webservices.Org. He also
serves as analyst for Evans Data Corp., and is lead analyst for Evans'
Web services and enterprise development management issues surveys.
SOA in Action Blog
|
« The Benefits of a Well-Centered SOA | Main | Transcript: Q&A with Dr. Raj Nagaratnam, IBM's SOA Security Expert » August 05, 2008Panel: In Search of Business and Tech-Savvy SOA Professionals Are SOA and Enterprise Architecture converging, as many analysts say, or are they still worlds apart? If they are worlds apart, how do organizations find and nurture those special individuals that can bridge both the business and IT worlds, while selling the concept of SOA? These were the questions being addressed at a BriefingsDirect panel discussion that took place at the recent Open Group EA conference in Chicago. As Dana Gardner, moderator of the panel, put it, defining the role of enterprise architecture (EA) in the context of service-oriented architecture (SOA) has turned out to be a murky process. Panelists attempted to shed light on the roles SOA practitioners need to play in EA, and vice-versa. I had the opportunity of joining Dana, along with Tony Baer, Eric Knorr, Andras Szakal, and David Cotterill in a rousing discussion about what enterprises expect from their SOA architects. (Access the podcast here, transcript here.) Szakal, chief architect at IBM's Federal Software Group, opened up the discussion in stating that he believes the roles of Enterprise Architects and SOA architects "are significantly different," noting that EAs have "a whole set of governance requirements that an enterprise architect is involved with that an SOA practitioner may not be involved with." While there are many areas where the two disciplines intersect, SOA practitioners engage in transforming business processes into implementation, while EAs focus on making sure the organization adheres to enterprise architecture principles. Szakal added that "the enterprise architect is really more focused on trying to bring the organization together around a business strategy or mission. And, certainly, they understand the tooling and how to translate the mission, vision, and strategy into an SOA architecture... If you look at the SOA practitioners who come from the systems integrators... ...they are focused more on IT and the implementation." Cotterill, head of innovation at the U.K. Government Department for Work and Pensions, stated that SOA projects need individuals who are not only technically knowledgeable, but also have business skills. "What we are really looking for are people who can then move into the business space, who have a lot more of the softer skills, things like influencing," he said. "How do you build and maintain a relationship with a senior business executive? Those are kind of the skills sets that we're looking for, and they are hard to find. Typically, you find them in consultants who charge you a lot of money." Cotterill holds out hope, however, that business-technical skills can be developed from within as well. "They're also skills that can be learned -- provided you have a certain level of experience. We try to find people who have a good solid technical background and who show the aptitude for being able to develop those softer skills. Then, we place them in an environment and give them the challenge to actually develop those skills and maintain those relationships with the business. When it works, it's a really great thing, because they can become the trusted partner of our business people and unmask all the difficulties of the IT that lies behind." In addition, the technical know-how comes into play "so that they can challenge the integrators and the suppliers -- just to make sure that they are doing the right thing, that we're keeping as open and flexible as we would like to be, and so that we're not tied into any given supplier," Cotterill said. Eric Knorr added that typically, an successful SOA effort, at least at this stage of the evolution, requires "visionary leadership".He notes that "in case study after case study, you run into a chief architect, or even a chief technology officer sometimes, who has really made that connection, in an SOA context, between not only looking at the business processes, but breaking them down into business services and figuring out how to map a technical infrastructure against that. That leadership is so important, because SOA is such an elusive concept that it's very easy to fall back into the old habits of enterprise application integration (EAI), and thinking in terms of point-to-point integration and not thinking in terms about the last presentation, that strategic value." _____________________________________________________________________ Posted by joemckendrick in Management • SOA • SOA Events • SOA Podcasts • SOA Research and Analyst Reports • SOA Vendors | Digg This | Add to del.icio.us Trackback Pings TrackBack URL for this entry:
|
