IBM Chief Architect: 5 Keys To Boosting SOA Efficiencies 
Even as a slow economy pressures IT budgets and staffs, a top IBM architect says customers can do “a lot…to accelerate the value of SOA.” Rob High, Chief Architect for IBM’s SOA Foundation, shares SOA success tips at Impact2010, May 2-7 in Las Vegas.
Even as a slow economy continues to pressure IT budgets and staff resources, a top IBM executive says customers are accelerating SOA-driven efforts to drive IT efficiencies and business value – without
added pain or expense.
“There is a lot that can be done to accelerate the value of SOA, and it is not as daunting or expensive as some people may make it out to be,” Rob High, an IBM Fellow and Chief Architect for IBM’s SOA Foundation, told Integration Developer News.
High will share the secrets and details of SOA success with CTO, architects and IT managers at Impact2010, Big Blue’s annual SOA and BPM event for IT and business leaders to be held May 2-7 in Las Vegas, Nev. He will be among hundreds of other SOA experts from IBM and customers at the event.
Hear 4 Top IBM Experts Online
SOA/BPM Experts:
Architect's Guide to Impact2010
April 1, 2010
SOA benefits are available to a broad range of SOA and IT professionals, High added, through more understanding and application of SOA principals. He notes these eye-popping improvements, which came with little or no added technology or staff expenditures.
- In healthcare, one firm is using SOA like a scalpel to cut expenses and delays -- without reducing patient care. SOA technologies and Best Practices have cut the firm’s therapy cost by a whopping 90 percent, and also reduced the expense of new applications by more than half.
- In energy, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory is using SOA to cut energy cost to homeowners by 10 percent, using an approach that turns ordinary thermostats into automatic ‘day traders for energy.’
- In finance, IBM SOA and BPM are creating new dynamic infrastructures that are helping rebuilt the world’s battered currency markets, allowing currency exchanges to better understand risk in real-time.
Valuable Keys To Unlock SOA Value
Presented at IBM’s Impact 2010, May 2-7
Among the major keys for unlocking SOA value – especially in today’s economy, High told IDN, is simply to “apply good software engineering principals.”
To High, who is one of IBM’s leading engineers in SOA, this means applying these valuable principals comprehensively across a wide swath of your SOA project. In specific, High identifies five (5) areas that hold special importance for reaping SOA value: Reuse, Connectivity, Information, People and Process.
“These five areas are rich in opportunity to derive huge amounts of value and efficiencies from SOA,” High said, even among companies who have long experience with SOA projects.
Impact 2010 will take attendees into many dimensions of all of these five areas in programs and content designed to disclose many new efficiencies, he said. To make his point, high offers a glimpse at Impact’s content for Reuse.
“While many in IT know the discussion about how reuse makes SOA more efficient, Impact will offer tangible ways – through presentations, Ask-the-Expert sessions, one-on-one’s with IBM experts and even labs – to show attendees how customers are getting better at reuse,” For example, Impact will offer many ways to show attendees how to use SOA reuse principals to unlock valuable legacy [non-SOA] resources to build SOA components.
Another SOA theme at Impact, High said, will be using SOA to “solve today’s problems and plan for tomorrow.” Impact will have ways to better streamline SOA investments to meet needs of specific projects, and help convert ‘infrastructure upgrade’ projects to targeted, high-value engagements, he added.
Sampler of SOA / ESB Opportunities at Impact 2010
Here is a sample of the hundreds of SOA/ESB-related sessions at IBM Impact2010, many of which are interactive, and all are designed to promote information sharing between attendees, presenters and IBM experts.
“It’s always a good idea to get help and ideas from others that have succeeded,” High added.
- Six Months to SOA ROI: ESB Messaging & Enrichment
A look at how companies are using IBM’s portfolio of ESB connects, transforms and data access technologies for heterogeneous business systems. See how organizations can leverage existing assets, skills and resources to achieve rapid return on investment within 6 months. - Dynamic Services Bus Design
A comprehensive overview of the current state of ESBs (Enterprise Service Bus) and valuable associated patterns for adoption to actualization. Also includes a review of latest evolution of ESBs to support federation, business process management and cloud computing. Vertical use of ESBs for financial, telecom and healthcare are also featured - Design and Implement Robust SOA
Proven practices across the lifecycle to ensure robust and scalable SOA, including focus on design, version, secure, monitor, audit and govern services. Also a look at best uses for powerful SOA / ESB patterns (service gateways, proxies, composite services). - SOA Best Practices (from Design to Implementation)
IBM and customers share major steps and processes for developing an effective SOA. Speakers also detail pitfalls to avoid in realizing the architectural vision. Topics: Design and build services, Connect services; Govern services to improve business and IT efficiencies. - Case Study – Inside IBM’s SOA Success
A detailed look at IBM's asset reuse initiative, internal Community Source site and use of tools that is driving SOA productivity at Big Blue. - Legacy Mainframe to SOA
Integrating SOA & BPM with z-Series: How one insurance company is evolving from a monolithic host application to fast and flexible application integration with SOA and BPM. - Case Study: SOA Governance – Ford’s Secret to Global SOA
How Ford Motor Company created a successful global SOA program, effectively tying together people and process for US, Europe and Asia Pacific. - SOA Governance to Automate SOA
How customers cut SOA budgets and boost SOAs effectiveness and business output with a new agile and full-featured approach for SOA Governance and Federation that readily fits into their any-to-any heterogeneous environments. - Lab: Governing with WebSphere Service Registry and Repository
A hands-on lab to learn how to govern a SOA services lifecycle (through design time and run time). Also learn industry best practices for service lifecycle governance and how IBM WebSphere Service Registry and Repository can help you better control your SOA. - Case Study: Northwestern Mutual - Runtime SOA Governance
Northwestern Mutual has embarked on an effort to enable the enforcement of SOA Governance decisions at runtime. In this session they will share their experience and lessons learned.
