Most reports from across the real estate finance business paint service-oriented architecture (SOA) as a strategic investment that yields numerous long-term benefits.
A recent report from the research firm Gartner indicates that those fruitful investments could come at a cost.
The insights came from Gartner analysts who discussed technology, governance and organizational best practices for SOA initiatives at Gartner Symposium/ITxpo 2007: Emerging Trends late April 26. They reported that SOA will be used in more than half of new “mission critical projects.” “business applications and processes designed in 2007 and more than 80 percent in 2010.
SOA Growing Pains
SOA implies an IT architecture that uses “loosely coupled” services to support business processes and users. The idea is not new: technologists have long envisioned an architecture through which network resources could be offered as stand-alone services that one could access without having to know its underlying platform implementation.
As SOA has been adopted across industries, the number of failed projects has increased, Gartner said, and companies have found that the benefits come at a cost. SOA software products have come to market, she added, but have sometimes proven immature, disappointing users with poor reliability, performance and productivity.
Specifically, SOA principles have been applied too rigidly, which has created some unsatisfactory results, as projects have become too expensive and missed deadlines.
“Almost any technology that is taken too literally is going to be disruptive,” said Andrew Weiss, CTO of automated underwriting specialist Overture Technologies. Weiss, who also served as senior vice president of Advanced Technology at Fannie Mae for nearly a decade, commented on the report in an exclusive interview with Real Estate Technology News.
A purist, he explained, might insist that all IT transactions be done through web services. However, that might not be necessary; there may be other parts of the architecture where SOA is not appropriate. Tasks involving large volumes of reference data, for example where an SOA approach might make the application slower and require more network resources, might be better handled through a more traditional direct connection.
compensations
Compared to traditional client/server or monolithic architectures, Gartner noted, SOA requires more careful application design and often means an outlay of IT funds for integration middleware.
Weiss pointed out, however, that much of that software can be acquired through open source channels, such as the Apache web server or the Tomcat Java application server.
The biggest potential problem, he said, will come from the interaction between legacy systems and new SOA-based applications. Older “service wrapper” systems will be possible, but will require skill and knowledge, and perhaps some experimentation, Weiss said.
There could also be regional challenges. Large metropolitan areas on the US coast may have a greater number of SOA-savvy IT employees than cities in other parts of the country.
The test challenge
Gartner added to that list of weaknesses, arguing that testing, debugging, managing and securing a distributed SOA network can also be more complex and costly than older IT architectures.
“Testing is an interesting question,” Weiss said. “Testing costs may increase early on, but you can actually change the testing model and paradigm in a way that brings testing costs back to at least previous levels, if not a little higher.” low”.
For example, when working with monolithic architectures, lenders have to test any significant changes almost from start to finish. With SOA, they can focus testing only on the part that is undergoing changes and do a fairly light end-to-end integration test.
Is there the return on investment?
Despite the falling cost of technology, the more widespread awareness and availability of SOA services from system integrators, in most cases it will be difficult to justify the incremental upfront cost of SOA compared to traditional architecture for a quick return on investment, opportunistically oriented. projects, Gartner said. Until 2008, the initial investment for large-scale service-oriented applications will only be justified for projects with a planned lifespan of three years or more. But is that a significant statement in the world of mortgages?
“Almost all projects have a lifespan of more than three years by the time you finish them,” Weiss said.
The ROI challenges Gartner cites could relate to integrating new technologies with legacy systems.
“If you take an old approach to the world and try to force it on an SOA-based project, you’re likely to run into some conflicts,” Weiss said. “Does this call into question the value of SOA architecture or the adequacy of other practices? I would suggest that the business value is there and has been demonstrated in various places and forms, but the CIO needs to recognize that they may need to alter their practice a bit.”
CIOs can realize true “business value,” Gartner repeated, because SOA helps them deliver more on a flat-budget situation, even as they work to keep pace with never-ending business change.
They should also see greater adaptability, faster implementation times, and lower costs for application development and integration.
The research analytics firm suggests that companies “invest aggressively” in SOA, as it is on the fast track to becoming the architectural foundation for nearly all new business-critical applications.