gene leganza vice president forrester research

TeleconferenceWhy Is SOA Hot In Government? Gene Leganza

Vice President

Forrester Research

September 25, 2006. Call in at 10:55 a.m. Eastern Time

2Entire contents © 2006 Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved.

Theme

Agencies need executive leadership to drive the

organizational and process changes that SOA

requires.


Agenda

• Forrester’s definition of SOA

• Forrester survey data on trends in government IT

• Some survey data from US federal enterprise architects

• What does this mean for SOA in government agencies?

• Recommendations


Forrester’s definition: SOA

► Applications are organized into business services that are (typically) network-accessible.

► Service interface definitions are first-class development artifacts.

► Quality of service characteristics are explicitly specified in the design.

► Services are cataloged and discoverable by development tools and management tools.

► Protocols are predominantly, but not exclusively, based on Web services.

A style of design, deployment, and management of applications and software infrastructure in which:


Traditional applications versus SOA

Traditional applications SOA

Designed to last Designed to change

Tightly coupled Loosely coupled, agile, and adaptive

Integrated silos Composed of services

Code-oriented Process-oriented

Long development cycle Interactive and iterative development

Cost-centered Business-centered

Favors homogeneous technology Favors heterogeneous technology


Which of the following are likely to be one of your IT organization’s major initiatives for 2006? (3 or 4 on a scale of 1 [not on our agenda] to 4 [critical priority])

31%

20%

31%

26%

46%

74%

61%

61%

20%

20%

22%

59%

71%

73%

73%

31%

Government

Nongovernment

Base: 852 nongovernment IT decision-makers and 59 IT decision-makers at government agencies

Reduce the number of software infrastructure vendors that we work with

Adopt software-as-a-service

Reduce the number of major application vendors that we work with

Implement application portfolio management

Move software implementations to standards-based technologies

Reduce software costs in any way

Significantly upgrade your security environment

Improve integration between applications in your company

Source: Business Technographics® November 2005 North American And EuropeanEnterprise Software And Services Survey

© 2006, Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited

2005 Spending Compared With 2004

Integration and eGovernment are hot in US federal agencies

From US Federal IT Spending Rising Unevenly, April 2005


From US Federal IT Spending Rising Unevenly, April 20052005 Spending Compared With 2004

Integration and eGovernment are hot in US federal agencies


Does your company currently run mainframe COBOL applications?

Nongovernment

Government




Government IT Typically Spends More On O&MApril 2006, Trends “2006 Government IT Spending Won’t Jump”


Which of the following best describes your firm’s approach to or status of service-oriented architecture (SOA)?

Nongovernment

Government



42%

35%

43%

33%

13%

10%

19%

24%

16%

18%

10%

16%

Not pursuing, and noimmediate plans to do so

Will pursue within 12 months

Use selectively,without a clear strategy

Have an enterprise-level strategy and commitment for SOA

Don't know


US Federal Enterprise Architects Are More Committed To SOA Than Private Sector Counterparts

April 2006, Trends “US Federal Enterprise Architects Are Committed To SOA, But Procurement Gets Complicated”


And Fed Architects Expect SOA Usage To Grow



Agencies Mainly Use SOA For Internal Integration



But Federal Government SOA Leadership Is Distributed Throughout The Enterprise



But Standard Procurement Processes Get In The Way Of Service Reuse



What does all this mean?

• Integration is a top priority.

• Legacy applications are a major issue.

• SOA is hot, but:

» Budgets are tight — there is no money to fund a major technology transformation.

» Procurement — and other IT management processes — can throw a monkey wrench into the works.

» Agencywide leadership is largely missing.


What it means, continued

SOA’s near-term value for government agencies will lie in its ability to enable integration.

The reuse benefit may lag behind other benefits as procurement and governance processes evolve.

Agencies are doomed to reinvent the wheel unless they pursue active leadership and coordination.


Key questions for a new IT approach include:

• Which development and support teams are responsible for which SOA application subsets?

• Which SOA application subsets are funded by which budgets?

• When the user says, "The application is down!" which team do we call first?

• How many teams will have to work together to deliver a complete business solution?


The elements of a mature SO-IT organization

• A clear, compelling, concise SOA vision

• Strong business-IT collaboration

• Clear IT, enterprise architecture, and SOA governance practices

• A clear focus on the critical importance of service interface definitions

• Coordinated architecture and infrastructure evolution

• Clear understanding of the funding model for SOA

• Service delivery life-cycle and roles adaptations for SOA

• A library of patterns for service design and implementation

• A process for service value measurement


SOA leadership and guidance from the federal government

• SOA Community of Practice:http://web-services.gov/soacop/

» First SOA for eGov conference May 06. See http://colab.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?SOAforEGovernment_2006_05_2324 and http://colab.cim3.net/file/work/SOACoP/2006_05_2324/.

• Chief Architects Forum (see www.gsa.gov/collaborate)


Agency leadership and strategy

• Create a center of excellence for SOA planning.

» EA group has structures and processes in place.

» Implement as a technology strategy center-of-excellence and/or a clearinghouse for SOA initiatives.

» Use business architecture to analyze agency needs and prioritize expected benefits from SOA (reuse, integration, etc.).

» Use design patterns as the vehicle for communicating best practices.


Recommendations

• Define the vision for SOA adoption in your agency using “street-level strategy”:

» Pursue a strategy that contributes to long-term enterprisewide goals while addressing near-term pain points — build the future state one project at a time.

• Create an organizational clearinghouse for all SOA-related initiatives — such as your enterprise architecture program office.

• Provide one-stop shopping for guidance on technology selection and implementation strategies.


Gene Leganza

+1 203/761-8848

[email protected]

www.forrester.com

Thank you

gene leganza vice president forrester research

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