Enterprise SOA

What are the architectural challenges of ESA?

The architectural challenges of ESA stem from the violation of the implicit assumptions referenced earlier; the ideas of the database as a point of integration and the application as a process boundary no longer apply.

The first challenge is flexibility . Once services are created and processes are automated, optimization and innovation depend on a company's ability to not only implement processes, but also be able to change and improve them based on experience. This is a huge challenge, considering the average optimization cycle of today's custom application projects, which may range anywhere from 9 to 18 months—a timeframe that is no longer acceptable. Companies need to implement a new IT system within weeks and months in order for it to have an impact. The tradeoff for flexibility has traditionally been cost—it's easier to make changes to a system when development costs are no object. But that implies the system was never very flexible in the first place. Inherent flexibility implies a corresponding reduction in cost to make changes because flexibility has to be affordable in order to be meaningful.

The second challenge facing ESA is data consistency —how to unify and synchronize all of the information and process flow in an automated process where data is stored in lots of different databases and lots of applications are supplying services.

The third challenge is heterogeneity . The modern enterprise can't assume that all of its ...