An ancient Chinese proverb says, "Tell me and I forget. Show me and I
remember. Involve me and I understand."
For many people, even entire organizations, the approach to education seems
to be along the lines of learning facts, figures, details, tools and
standards. This results in a shallow understanding of both the business
problem and the new Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) strategies available
for addressing the business's needs. The next step is either to scrap the
initiative or pour more time and money into patching the solution to bridge
the chasm that could have been avoided with a more complete understanding of
the domain and the implications and strategies surrounding service
orientation.
In this article, we'll unpack the challenges facing organizations tha... (more)
A Journey of False Starts
This is not the first time you’ve had your heart set on revolutionizing
your information systems:
One year, you rolled out a big Enterprise Application Integration (EAI)
initiative, but it was too brittle and carried high maintenance costs. For a
while you experimented with Web Services, but found that while they were easy
to work with, they were largely insuffi... (more)
Modeling business processes offers an effective way of capturing end-to-end
requirements for a solution. It also clearly communicates the business
scenario and corresponding solution in a way that can be understood by both
business and technology professionals. This communication does hinge upon
consistency in modeling, output format, and even the approach that is ...
... (more)
In-source, out-source, up-source, down-source, crowd-source, cloud-source,
source, source, source. At your work and on the street, how many different
sources you meet! (Inspiration borrowed from multiple readings of Dr Seuss's
The Foot Book to my toddler). It seems everyone these days is looking for a
new 'source' for making their business, civic organization, or personal life
more ...
... (more)
As the fallout from the economy takes its toll: staff layoffs, reduced
capital expenditures, dwindling revenue, etc., enterprises of all sizes are
looking for opportunities to trim back on their fixed costs and move toward
business models that are more agile, scaling up AND down with demand. Call
it Cloud Computing, call it Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), call it
service orientatio... (more)