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SOA Quality is Key to Promoting Trust and Reuse of Services;
Requires a Well Articulated Strategy Comprising Governance and Testing
WALTHAM, Mass. and HOLLIS, N.H.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--To maximize
the intended benefits of service-oriented architecture (SOA)
implementations, organizations need to develop a well-articulated SOA
Quality strategy to promote trust and reuse, according to new research
from leading analyst firm Hurwitz & Associates. The report, titled
“Executive Survey: SOA Implementation Satisfaction,” authored by Carol
Baroudi and Dr. Fern Halper, confirms the top drivers for SOA adoption
include the expectation of greater reuse in existing and newly-built
Web services, business flexibility, ease of integration and speed of
integration – with nearly 90% of respondents pointing to service reuse
as their number one concern.
"The Hurwitz research suggests that organizations that implement a SOA
and have a quality plan in place are more likely to be completely
satisfied with the quality of their SOA," said report co-author, Carol
Baroudi of Hurwitz & Associates. "Creating a viable SOA is
contingent on the ability to ensure quality and gain trust. Without an
articulated quality strategy rigorously enforced, companies will be
hard-pressed to scale their SOA implementations and realize the
intended benefits."
In September and October of 2006, Hurwitz & Associates surveyed
ninety-nine IT executives from companies in North America and the UK
with a size greater than 250 employees who had expressed an interest in
SOA or Web services. Approximately two-thirds of respondents surveyed
(66%) had begun their SOA journey. The research notes that nearly half
(47%) of the respondents, who had implemented SOA cited some
dissatisfaction with their reuse due to a lack of planning and business
goals and a lack of understanding of what services are available for
reuse. Lack of governance and lack of standards also contributed to
dissatisfaction with SOA implementations. Respondents who had
implemented a SOA and had a quality plan in place were more likely to
be completely satisfied with the quality of their SOA.
The independent research was sponsored by Mindreef®, Inc., a provider of award winning SOAPscope® and SOAPscope ServerTM
solutions for Web services testing and SOA quality. Teams at Wachovia,
Fidelity National Financial, Charles Schwab, IBM, Valero Energy, and
more than 3,000 customers at over 1,200 organizations worldwide use
Mindreef products to successfully build, test, and maintain
high-quality Web services and SOAs. The resulting trust in high-quality
services leads to increased adoption and reuse of Web services
throughout the SOA.
"We firmly believe that SOA Quality is achieved through continual
optimization of all components within an SOA environment to ensure
maximum adoption, business agility and service reuse," said Frank
Grossman, co-founder and president of Mindreef. "The research
underscores the importance of SOA Quality as a key component of reaping
the intended benefits of an SOA – it’s the strategy needed to achieve
maximum business benefit – and that companies will be more satisfied if
they implement a well-articulated plan to drive pervasive quality
throughout their SOA initiatives, to obtain the agility and reuse that
yield a significant and immediate ROI."
Well-Designed and Well-Tested Services Promote Trust and Reuse
Although the SOA registry and repository are instrumental to promoting
reuse, nearly 50 percent of respondents stated that they have no
registry or repository solution in place or use an in-house solution.
According to Hurwitz & Associates, the functionality of both is
critical to promote reuse and that companies should look for a
standards-based product to provide these functions. The research also
suggests that companies with a formal solution for both a registry and
repository are more likely to have their expectations for reuse met
than those that have no solution.
The Hurwitz & Associates analysis further notes that organizations
will benefit by better understanding the nature of reuse of services in
an SOA, as this opens new dimensions of possibilities sourced in
dynamic combinations of components in an environment where not all
combinations will ever be tested. With the testing of SOA environments
“taking a quantum leap in complexity,” the trust needed for SOA to
attain widespread use will be built from the successful use of
well-designed and well-tested services.
"Hurwitz & Associates believes that creating a viable SOA
initiative is contingent upon the ability to ensure software quality
and gain a trust of all constituents," said report co-author Dr. Fern
Halper of Hurwitz & Associates. "Organizations keen on reusing
software components need to ensure they have been designed for reuse,
tested in a SOA environment, described and published in an easily
searchable registry/repository, and are compliant with policies,
procedures and regulations that govern their use."
For more information or to download a free copy of the report, visit www.mindreef.com/report
About Mindreef
Mindreef, Inc. provides Web services testing and SOA quality software
solutions that allow organizations drive pervasive quality into their
SOA deployments. Mindreef’s award-winning SOAPscope and SOAPscope
Server products help business analysts, architects, application
developers, testers, operations, and support staff to ensure quality as
they define, implement, integrate, test, and deploy Web services and
composite applications. Mindreef products are in use by more than three
thousand customers at more than 1,200 organizations worldwide. Mindreef
is a private company, backed by Kodiak Venture Partners. For more
information, visit www.mindreef.com
About Hurwitz & Associates
Hurwitz & Associates is a consulting, research and analyst firm
that focuses on the customer benefits derived when advanced and
emerging software technologies are implemented to solve pragmatic
business problems. The firm's research concentrates on understanding
the business value of software technologies, such as Service Oriented
Architecture and Web services, and how they are successfully
implemented within highly distributed computing environments.
Additional information on Hurwitz & Associates can be found at www.hurwitz.com |
