Lance Styles's Public Library

12 Nov 09

Roundtable: SOA for the Defense - SOA in Action Blog

When it comes to service oriented architecture, DoD prefers not to make a "big bang," but take things one quiet, deliberate step at a time.

www.ebizq.net/...dtable_soa_for_the_defense.php - Preview

system engineering soa defense spiral incremental development dod

Risacher said DoD formulated and published its SOA strategy in May 2007. The
goals of the effort are to "get people to provide services on the network, make
sure that those services are visible, accessible and understandable to other
users, incentivize people to use them, improvise and use them, and figure out
how to manage them from a network operations standpoint as well as a governance
standpoint."
DoD hopes to speed up the application development and deployment process, and
better target functionality where it is needed
2 more annotations...
- For large DoD systems, we often find that each connection costs $1 million a
  year to maintain -- that's not an exaggeration.
- "We're trying to influence acquisition strategy needs to focus on smaller and
  shorter deliverables, so we can task as we learn, reduce risks, and get those
  capabilities out faster. We're focusing on standards and open architecture, and
  how to share some IT resources. It's a big, difficult shift for an organization
  as large as defense department."

Informatica Extends Service Orientation to the Data World - SOA in Action Blog

Talks briefly about the Data Service functionality introduced in Informatica 9.

www.ebizq.net/...rmatica_extends_service_or.php - Preview

soa informatica data service

SOA has failed to deliver the value that has been expected of it, primarily
because it has lacked the data abstraction layer that enables organizations to
basically define the data objects and the rules associated with data objects

29 Oct 09

ZapThink :: Research - Is there a Future for Enterprise Software?

Nice critique of why enterprise software has failed to deliver on its promise.

www.zapthink.com/report.html - Preview

diigo soa erp enterprise software zapthink

13 Oct 09

From Discovery to Decomposition: The Five Stages of SOA - SOA in Action Blog

A maturity model for SOA, not based on an engineering school's framework, but on the reality of where things seem to fall within today's organizations.

www.ebizq.net/..._dicovery_to_decomposition.php - Preview

soa maturity

Understanding the Real Costs of Integration | SOA World Magazine

Defines the difference between integrating web services and Service-Oriented Integration

soa.sys-con.com/1075278 - Preview

soa integration

The costs of a typical integration project go through four distinct phases: the
initial setup costs, the cost of configuring and customizing the integration
project, ongoing maintenance costs, and costs involved when any of the elements
of the integration project change.
With custom integration, the costs for both maintaining and changing systems can
become exorbitant since developers must recode all applications that are
impacted by changes.
5 more annotations...
- EAI systems "pour concrete on business processes," since they tend to solidify
  existing processes rather than enable an IT environment that allows companies to
  deal easily with change.
- Vendors that pitch their wares as "SOAP wrappers" or "Web Services adapters"
  offer a dramatically short-sighted view of integration that seeks to lower only
  the initial costs without solving any of the fundamental problems of the
  traditional EAI/B2Bi approaches.
- In fact, all that is accomplished is that developers now pour standards-based
  concrete over existing business processes
- businesses must spend time analyzing their business processes and creating
  business Services at varying levels of granularity
- The real win with SOI, therefore, is in the dramatic reduction of cost at the
  maintenance and change phases of integration

What Is Service Orientation? | SOA World Magazine

soa.sys-con.com/1066940 - Preview

Despite recent improvement the last decade many companies still build systems
that are legacy the moment they are turned on.

06 Oct 09

Is SOA DOA? -- Federal Computer Week

While SOA may be facing rough times in the private sector, this article gives a variety of examples of how SOA is blossoming in the federal sector.

fcw.com/...EAT-SOA-and-netcentricity.aspx - Preview

soa dod nces defense

Government organizations such as the Air Force and Defense Department have made
SOA a critical part of their efforts in pursuing network-centric operations. For
example, the Air Force’s Distributed Common Ground Systems uses SOA design
principles to stitch together intelligence data feeds from multiple systems and
sources. That eliminates the need to field redundant capabilities or build one
giant system to handle all the data.
“In some agencies, there is a mandate for SOA, without a clear business driver
for SOA,” said Jason Bloomberg, an analyst at SOA consulting firm ZapThink,
which sees an increasing proportion of its U.S.-based business coming from DOD
SOA projects. “As a result, the risk is that the implementation may not meet the
true business requirements."
5 more annotations...
- SOA aims to get away from the traditional approach of designing software
  applications as monolithic systems that try to provide all the business or
  mission functionality that users require in one big package.
- SOA also provides a cost-reduction benefit. Fagan said NCES contractors can
  perform integration activities using NCES capabilities “without near the level
  of effort and coordination that such integration activities would have taken
  just a few years ago.”
  
  That’s one of the benefits the Air Force’s DCGS seeks. By separating a
  software application’s user interface from the underlying business logic and
  data, it will be easier to integrate these interoperable components.
  
  “We can have a more agile acquisition cycle because we can develop the major
  components independently but still be able to relatively easily integrate the
  final system,” Tschuor said.
- Governments also might need to overcome cultural hurdles to make SOA work.
  
  Bob Coxe, former Army chief technology officer and chief information officer
  at Criterion Systems, said government agencies “may or may not have a cultural
  affinity going toward the stovepipe [systems], and the sharing activity is
  somewhat new.”
- Retired Lt. Gen. William Donahue, former communications and information director
  at the Air Force and now executive vice president at TechTeam Government
  Solutions, said he believes SOA deployments have become too focused on IT
  considerations.
- Similarly, Peter Woodhull, president of Modus21, makes a distinction between
  buzzword SOA, which he views as a technical exercise, and service orientation as
  an architectural framework. The latter is critical to net-centric operations, he
  said.

28 Aug 09

Deloitte: A Universal Consulting Language - Dave van den Ende and Wim Scheper - FDE

Overview of XBRL (including references to XBRL-GL) and how it is beginning to shape the busineess information landscape beyond simple financial reporting.

www.the-financedirector.com/...universal-consulting - Preview

xbrl xbrl-gl

'After the Netherlands Water Board moved to XBRL there was a 25% increase in the
efficiency of its reporting process, and we see similar figures in other
industries. In Australia, a pilot project for one company has seen efficiency
gains of up to 70%,' notes Deloitte Consulting partner Wim Scheper, a professor
at Utrecht University.
XBRL GL essentially enables continuous disclosure reporting directly linked
to transaction systems. Once again, this opens up the opportunity to reduce
reporting costs and simultaneously improve governance, especially for mature
companies operating in a networked environment.
3 more annotations...
- 'GL is not competing with other transactional data standards, but is a bridge
  between transactional systems that enables continuous reporting. Companies need
  to disclose more regularly and focus on the quality of their data. GL is a good
  standard for that. It links reporting to transactions, so there is continuous
  disclosure, which brings down reporting costs,’ says van den Ende.
- XBRL is here to stay, and there is no time like the present to begin exploring
  how it will affect compliance issues around the reporting process and how it can
  be used to improve the management of business information across an organisation
  and its partners in the value chain.
- Oracle and SAP have now announced XBRL filing capability in their ERP systems,
  and Swift has joined XBRL in the US, so we will see many more real-life
  applications

It’s Time For E-Government and Government Employees To Get The Dignity They Deserve

Blog referencing the five roles that will drive the digital future: information creators, assessors, brokers, integrators and analyzers

blogs.gartner.com/...o-get-the-dignity-they-deserve - Preview

26 Aug 09

Net-Centricity: SOA in Battle | SOA World Magazine

...the story of how SOA became so strategic for the DoD provides insight into the power of SOA for all organizations...

soa.sys-con.com/1077491 - Preview

soa defense net-centric history

the story of how SOA became so strategic for the DoD provides insight into the
power of SOA for all organizations
The idea for Network Centric Warfare arose during the late 1990s in response to
the rise of the Internet. Its original concepts, therefore, were essentially
"Web 1.0" in nature. It didn't take long, however, for DoD architects to realize
that the network itself was only a piece of the puzzle, and it soon became clear
that the challenges of Net-Centricity were as much organizational as
technological.
6 more annotations...
- Net-Centricity requires cooperation across the different branches of service --
  a tall order for an organization as siloed as the DoD.
- In fact, as the DoD and their contractors hammered out the details of
  Net-Centricity, it became increasingly clear that Net-Centricity required a
  broad, architectural approach to achieving agile information sharing in the
  context of a complex, siloed organization. At that point, SOA entered the
  Net-Centricity picture, providing essential best practices for sharing
  information resources to support business process needs.
- When battlefield commanders say that they want the warfighting resources at
  their disposal to be available as needed to achieve their mission objectives,
  they are essentially requiring a Service-Oriented approach to Net-Centricity.
- the Global Information Grid (GIG), a central Net-Centric capability, is
  inherently Service-Oriented. The GIG essentially consists of a set of Services
  that provide the underpinnings of the right information at the right place at
  the right time
- it's important to recognize the importance of SOA to Net-Centricity, in
  particular how the architecture required to succeed with Net-Centricity is the
  true SOA that ZapThink talks about, where organizational transformation is a
  greater challenge than the technological issues that organizations face.
- Sharing information across lines of business in a bank or manufacturer or power
  utility is child's play in comparison to getting the Army, Navy, Air Force, and
  Marines to share information effectively.

Transition a C-Level SOA Skeptic into a SOA Champion | SOA World Magazine

soa.sys-con.com/1082616 - Preview

There is a lot about converting stakeholders - who won't return your phone calls
- into investors who trust you with their money - that software architects can
learn from building architects.
The building architect first gains the attention of the real-estate investor by
expressing the value of a building proposition in terms of numbers the investor
understands.
2 more annotations...
- Once the building architect has gained the real estate investor's attention, he
  creates interest in his building proposal by showing the investor a drawing of
  the building and a building schedule.
- onsite inspections occur at key construction milestones so that the investor and
  his gatekeepers can see tangible progress.

Model First, Service-Enable Next | SOA World Magazine

Article stressing that achieving the proper degree of granularity in web service design, and by extension the greatest degree of service reusability, comes from proper business modeling.

soa.sys-con.com/1043827 - Preview

soa web services

The next few years will be less about new application development, and more
about existing application integration and reuse.
Rather than thinking about Services as a "universal API," enterprises can
realize the greatest ROI by thinking about application and system functionality
as loosely coupled, abstracted components.
1 more annotations...
- Business modeling and identifying the granularity of Web Services will become as
  important as the business logic contained within the Web Services themselves,
  since Services components that are too coarse-grained will be just as difficult
  to reuse as tightly coupled object components.

21 Aug 09

BriefingsDirect Transcripts: Webinar: IDC Research Shows SOA Adoption Deepens in Enterprises Based on Key Implementation Practices

www.briefingsdirect.blogspot.com/...search-shows-soa-adoption.html - Preview

So, moving on, what we see -- and this is a poll that was recently run by IDC
this summer, primarily with mid- and large-sized organizations -- is that if
they haven’t already adopted SOA, they are planning on it, and at greater levels
of engagement.
What’s really noticeable now is that setting up an SOA governance structure has
reached the second most-indicated challenge.
2 more annotations...
- in order to move forward organization will need to think about SOA as an overall
  program, and how it impacts both technology and people dimensions within the
  organization.
- While technologies are key enablers, most of the study participants focused on
  organizational and program dynamics as being key contributors to success.

18 Aug 09

ZapThink :: Research - Divorcing SOA and Web Services

A quick look at the history of these two related, but quite separate concepts.

www.zapthink.com/report.html - Preview

soa web services services history

while Web Services alone can reduce the cost of integration, only by moving to SOA can an organization reduce the long-term cost of business change. In other words, Web Services get you the ticket to the ball, but you still have to learn to dance. - lances on 2009-08-18
Web Services have not yet lived up to their potential, and are now an increasingly marginal part of the SOA story. - lances on 2009-08-18
Web Services are still part of the story, to be sure, but now it has become clear that Web Services are not essential for SOA, and furthermore, SOA is not required for Web Services. - lances on 2009-08-18
most such B2B Web Services are simply standards-based application programming interfaces (APIs), devoid of an architecture that would provide the loose coupling, location independence, and business agility that SOA brings to the table. - lances on 2009-08-18
Perhaps the greatest challenge remaining is to establish the perspective that SOA is really about business process, but not about integration. - lances on 2009-08-18

Building Strategic Services for Your SOA | SOA World Magazine

Techniques for building SOA services that will ensure the services retain their value over long into the future.

soa.sys-con.com/1038494 - Preview

soa services

13 Aug 09

A Service-Oriented Bureau (10/18/06) -- www.GovernmentExecutive.com

Article highlights the risk of taking a "Big-Bang" approach to SOA in the federal government.

www.govexec.com/...101806mm.htm - Preview

soa federal fbi esb integration

the bureau is taking a conservative, tiered approach. For now, the FBI will
focus on reusing software while considering whether to buy an enterprise service
bus
the FBI wants to go for basics such as component reuse based on enterprise
application integration tools
1 more annotations...
- The bureau has studied enterprise service buses and found they present problems
  for any agency working in a secure environment.

12 Aug 09

US Government & Federal Agencies Keen on Enterprise Architecture & SOA | SOA World Magazine

Impetus for Enterprise Architecture and SOA past tipping point in government

soa.sys-con.com/1069863 - Preview

soa federal defense architecture

Over the past two years, governments around the world have caught the enterprise
architecture and SOA fever. This is especially the case in the US Federal
Government, where a number of regulations, EA frameworks, and major spending
initiatives are all pointing towards continued and lasting expenditure and
investment in the area of EA.
the Department of Defense (DoD) is perhaps the largest implementer of SOA in the
world, in large part because they have an organization-wide SOA mandate.
1 more annotations...
- Various new regulations and guidelines have emerged that not only require
  enterprise architecture planning as part of the IT development process, but
  demand it as part of the IT budgeting process.

11 Aug 09

DISA asks industry for help with new priorities -- Federal Computer Week

DISA's director of strategic planning talks about his goal of connecting people and information, both internally and externally.

fcw.com/...disa-industry-forecast.aspx - Preview

disa defense cloud soa

One of the biggest technology demands the Defense Department faces today is
being able to easily share information
DISA wants an information technology structure similar to Amazon Web Services,
where users can gain access to the infrastructure on demand in a do-it-yourself
fashion.

07 Aug 09

A Mashup Example Using XBRL

Interesting glimpse into how XBRL fuels internal mashups at PWC. Usage has spread virally from 10 users to 65k users in just over a year.

swiftcommunity.net/...blogDetail.cfm - Preview

xbrl mashups pwc

06 Aug 09

Small bites, greater expertise produce speedier acquisitions -- Federal Computer Week

fcw.com/...ology-acquisition-process.aspx - Preview

soa defense aquisition

Timothy Harp, an acting deputy secretary of Defense who oversees IT acquisition,
said DOD should break up IT projects into segments that can be finished fast.
A DOD task force concluded in a report issued in March that the new acquisition process must
be agile and capable of delivering IT systems in no more than 18 months.
Currently though, it takes much longer. In an analysis of 32 major automated
information systems, DOD calculated it took more than seven years on average to
get the systems running.
1 more annotations...
- The task force recommends simultaneously launching multiple parts of a system
  that can be completed fast.