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SOA: Everybody is Doing it, Should You?
Earlier in the year, analysts have argued about whether SOA is a dead technology. Despite the talk, surveys have found that SOA adoption is way up and growing. But Gartner is questioning the meaning of the numbers.
SOA adoption is up, possibly only because SOA is the technology that vendors are pushing, and possibly because companies don’t want to be left behind. Gartner estimates that as many of 40 percent of companies that are using SOA have done so with no clear business benefit. Interestingly, the companies that haven’t adopted SOA typically cite the main reason for not adopting as not being able to identify the business benefit.
An article by Stephen Swoyer quotes Gartner vice president Massimo Pezzini as saying that “some SOA projects are perceived to have failed when, in fact, there are simply no well-established metrics to evaluate success. Therefore, sometimes the benefits are there, but people keep arguing how much better things are, and whether any improvement is really linked to SOA.”
He goes on to say that “Organizations must measure and communicate the success of SOA projects continuously in terms of the positive business outcomes achieved or the negative business outcomes avoided. If no one knows what SOA is good for, it will be seen as just another fashion wave, and the SOA project will be at risk.”
