A Final Word about the SOA Summit from Miko Matsumura

If I were to echo a sentiment from the packed-to-capacity event in Scottsdale, Arizona, SOA has become vital...This observation was made by Forrester analyst John Rymer.

SOA Practitioners are now asking the hard questions and coming up with the pragmatic answers. I proposed that SOA itself could be seen as the answer to a simple question:

"How do you maximize the business value of the existing and ongoing investment in IT?"

Asked in this form, many architectural principles naturally emerge out of the "primordial soup" of technical services that clutter every large Enterprise. Business Process is a common answer to the "business value" component, while leave-and-layer, loose coupling, reusability and core SOA principles emerge as logical ways to factor again existing and ongoing investment.

But part of the paradigm shift was in understanding the shift from what SOA is to how to achieve it.

Sean Valcamp from Avnet demonstrated this kind of pragmatism by showing how a complete system of measurement can accelerate and ensure adoption of SOA. He discussed measurements spanning Financial, Operation and Behavioral areas, including both strategic and tactical components.

By establishing such a robust program of measurement, SOA adopters can ensure both Approval and Adoption--two distinct facets of the SOA Success pattern.

Another very helpful case showing powerful dynamics around both Approval and Adoption was Kevin Flowers and his presentation on the amazing SOA results coming from Coca-Cola Enterprises (CCE).

The light bulb that went off for me during Kevin's presentation was that if SOA is about human behavior that we all could benefit from taking a page from the marketing handbook. As you all know, Coca-Cola is a genius at marketing...

Kevin showed how geographic mash-ups showing sales data superimposed on maps can provide a powerful "economic stimulus" for SOA projects. He also demonstrated how using GPS and delivering services to mobile devices create powerful connections previously unavailable.

In one case he cited that the headquarters noticed one delivery person moving back and forth within a store. When they called this person they discovered that they were moving hundreds of cases of Coca-Cola products using a grocery cart--because the store did not have a pallet loader (which their service-level agreement required them to have!)

By providing mobile devices to Coca-Cola Enterprises employees, the company saved millions of dollars and avoided significant costs incurred by support of larger devices like laptops as well as over 2M dollars in pure toll charges (reps calling the 800 number from payphones).

The roster of speakers was jam packed with in depth material and was too dense to go over one by one, but Leo Shuster, Bjoern Brauel, Ron and Jason from ZapThink, Susan Cramm and many others shared their insights.

For me, it was a reflection of a deeper turnaround in the SOA market — a newly found sense of optimism tinged with practicality. Architects rolling up their sleeves, taking measure of their adoption plans and getting their SOA programs under way with an eye to proving the value of their approaches.

Given the global reduction in travel budgets and the specter of swine flu, I was amazed to see packed-to-capacity rooms and very active participation in our program. If you have any other questions about SOA Summit, please feel free to contact us at soasummit@softwareag.com.

Thank you again for attending!