The Benefits of Service Oriented Architecture in Networks
SOA or Software Oriented Architecture (also referred to as Service Oriented Architecture) design has enabled large enterprises and small business alike to effectively manage information and the influx and generation of massive amounts of data for competitive advantage. SOA does this by enabling a loose integration of software specific to each business function in a way that allow communication between department and business function specific software while avoiding coupling and dependency issues that can occur when departments and business units with different needs are required to use the same business software platform to perform different tasks.
Service Oriented Architecture empowers organizations to use "best fit" software that increases productivity, facilitates collaboration between groups with differing software requirements, and lowers cost.
The term “middleware” comes into play quite often when SOA is the subject of conversation. SOA essentially plays the part of “gluing” disparate systems together that must function as a whole for the purposes of business functionality and enabling disparate systems to follow the business process model that is in place.
SOA as the central piece of a business information system can enable departments and business units the freedom to make decisions that are forced by software system dependencies but instead choosing software tools that truly meet the needs of individual units within the organization. For example, when FPS or the Fast Payment System came into play within the banking industry, banks that were quick to adopt FPS and allow same day transactions for customers were bound to gain a short term competitive advantage. Banking institutions with legacy software systems not prepared for integration with new networks and features such as FPS would fall behind in the market. However, banking institutions with flexible SOA systems could still integrate with FPS even while supporting legacy systems because SOA allows such integration by not requiring FPS or other new software and network enhancements to integrate directly with legacy systems (requiring expensive and often extensive custom integration) and instead leverage an SOA API or Application Programming Interface or similar SOA integration techniques to quickly adopt the new technologies.
SOA facilitates the use of legacy software, saving training costs, preserving customer relationships, and easing new software rollouts when required.
SOA also enables organizations to leverage existing software resources from one business unit or department for use in other areas of the company (code reuse) which can present a significant cost savings. While business departments do have different functions, they also require use of many of the same processes. This is especially true of business units within the same company. Procter and Gamble used just such a strategy to leverage existing software in one part of the organization for other business units that had similar needs. With some modifications, code reuse allowed them to save cost and since the software was already designed to integrate with their SOA solution, minimal effort and cost could be invested to deliver top notch results.
SOA enables business flexibility to choose the software they need, and to upgrade software quickly to meet business and market demands. Enabling large organizations the ability to remain nimble as they grow is one of the primary reasons why SOA is a valuable business tool.
© 2024 David Wilson
