Our ninth SOA Executive Forum testifies to SOA's effectiveness This week I'll be in New York hosting the ninth InfoWorld SOA Executive Forum. Count 'em, nine -- that's a lot of industry panels and case studies. So what accounts for... Our ninth SOA Executive Forum testifies to SOA’s effectiveness This week I’ll be in New York hosting the ninth InfoWorld SOA Executive Forum. Count ’em, nine — that’s a lot of industry panels and case studies. So what accounts for SOA’s staying power? In my opinion, two things do. One is common sense. Businesses can’t afford to develop and maintain redundant, siloed architectures anymore. When a service is shared by multiple applications, you have a single point of control with which to change business logic and eliminate a ton of wasted development work. The other reason is sheer business value. The theme of next week’s SOA Forum is “Building a foundation for continuous change.” We had an earthquake last week in San Francisco (a healthy 5.6 on the Richter scale), which reminded me that the foundation under San Francisco’s Transamerica Pyramid rests on giant rollers that allow the building move rather than break. SOA provides its own flexible foundation; this enables companies to roll with change, rather than crack from shifts in the marketplace. That agility is evident in this week’s “Five ways to roll out SOA,” contributing editor Galen Gruman’s latest on businesses that have planned and deployed successful SOA implementations. Comcast’s story is particularly interesting, as it began its SOA rollout by crystallizing domain expertise on the business side. Be sure to check out the case study for United Airlines, which explores the most effective way to integrate event-driven architecture and SOA. If you’re looking for the right middleware for the job, make a point of reading contributing editor James Borck’s comparison of the latest enterprise service busses (ESBs) from Cape Clear and Progress Software. That’s the kind of deep-diving, authoritative evaluation of complex enterprise software that only InfoWorld can deliver. SOA is here to stay, and you can rely on InfoWorld to assemble the industry’s leading experts and practitioners to guide you on your own SOA journey. If you’re in New York this week, we hope you’ll take advantage that “live” social network — and everything else our ninth SOA Forum has to offer. Get a three-minute primer on SOA with our SOA governance InfoClipz video. Technology Industry