Enterprise SOA

What stages will we go through on the way there? What skills will we have to develop?

ESA adoption won't happen all at once. It is still in its early stages at most firms. You've just witnessed a glimpse of a maturity near the end, or at least near the end of how far we can see into the future. But hopefully you have some appreciation of just how different the enterprise will look and function in such a fluid, highly iterative environment.

It's still hard to say whether there will be distinct stages of development as ESA matures. This book won't tell you when to remodel your org chart or when your first batch of business analysts will be ready to take over certain tasks from IT. And as you'll read shortly, one of the more intriguing aspects of ESA is that implementation need not proceed at a uniform, glacial place. You can begin deploying ESA principles and technologies at any time, at almost any scale, depending on your needs.

Are you a CEO wondering whether it's time to rally around the SOA and ESA flags? Then declare an enterprise-level commitment and get to work. Are you a project manager eager to solve a problem in your area of expertise and prove that the ROI is real? You can do that too. According to Forrester Research, you already are doing it. While large corporations are leading the way with increased IT spending and enterprise-level commitments, small firms trying to reduce their IT expenditures have turned to project-level ESA as their method of choice.

Nonetheless, you ...