SOA is an architectural paradigm: Robert LeBlanc

Usha Prasad

ORLANDO, FLORIDA: IBM, a pioneer in evangelizing Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) and its benefits in the global market place, has witnessed increasing interest from customers towards SOA adoption across the globe.

Today enterprises across all verticals are adopting SOA with factors like global competition, rapid advancements in technology and faster growth in a short span of time driving them to stay ahead in the race. Undoubtedly, SOA is an enabler of business for any enterprise.

At the general session of IBM's Pulse 2008 conference, held recently at Orlando, Florida, Robert LeBlanc, GM, Global Consulting Services & SOA, IBM Global Business Services, spoke at length on what is driving SOA and how service management and SOA evolved from similar issues.

Firstly, defining SOA, Robert said, "SOA is an IT architectural style that supports service orientation."

"SOA represents a shift in IT prioritization. The old thinking was that 'IT manages IT resources that support the business'. But the new thinking is that 'IT manages services that support business results,' he said.

Robert put forth views collected from over 2,500 CXOs on 'What's driving SOA?' The CXOs opined that business model innovation; global integration, talent management and business transparency were the key factors that were driving SOA, he noted. "And why SOA is playing is because 'the market is responding with more flexible environments'. SOA and service management evolved from similar issues. Customers want to improve this to run their business," he said.

According to Robert, the challenges faced in securing and managing SOA are:

• What's happening? - Service performing and availability monitoring
• How does this impact my business?
• Service level management
• Service identity and access control
• What actions can I take?
• Service lifecycle management

"The most satisfied SOA customers are likely to be the same customers who have also invested in end-to-end service management (ITSM), best practices and tools, IT management automation and virtualization" (According to OVUM 2006 report).

Further, Robert said, the capabilities required for securing and managing SOA are -

Visibility, Control and Automation. "SOA is not something new, it is just an enabler," he added.

Finally, highlighting the common ground between SOA and service management, he said:

• SOA is a new way of organizing what you have while ISM is a new way of managing what you have.
• SOA is an approach that enables agility and responsiveness in both IT and business while ITIL/ITSM focuses on the same need of agility and the responsiveness.

And, the bottom-line is, Robert says, "Today's business landscape is undergoing more rapid and transformative change. You can do service management without SOA, but you can't do SOA any without service management." "SOA is an architectural paradigm," he added.