Why SOA still matters

I confess — I am still a believer in SOA, even though it’s popular to say the trend by that name has faded into oblivion. Why am I still faithful? Because SOA is all about using common sense to rationalize existing infrastructure and extend capabilities while laying the groundwork for future change. Yeah, that’s a mouthful, but if you ask me, that’s the canonical definition of IT modernization.

I had a chance last week to talk with Stan Limerick, director of technology strategy and architecture for Whitney National Bank in New Orleans. He gave me a great example of what he calls a “straightforward” SOA implementation, which began last August and should be complete in spring 2011.

[ InfoWorld’s Dave Linthicum keeps the SOA discussion alive in his Cloud Computing blog. You can find a great example in this challenge to SOA vendors. ]

I would call this a textbook example of SOA, because it began with a top-down look at the business, with business management fully engaged (as opposed to “technology-led initiatives,” which Limerick believes “rarely turn out where you want them to be”). Limerick, CIO Frank DeArmas, and business management began with a “functional decomposition of the bank as it was.”

Everyone sat down and looked at where the $12 billion regional bank stood and where they wanted it to be. They examined the application portfolio. They did a market study. And they looked at potential gains in efficiency from the point of view of both IT and business operations. Ultimately, the company decided it would replace the core banking system and implement SOA at the same time, driven in large part by the desire for “better customer service, faster turnaround for customers, and better information for management.”

Under the hood, that meant some housecleaning. A key IT goal was to cut the application portfolio by half and vastly reduce the number of proprietary data integration interfaces from a whopping 850 to something more manageable based on Web services standards. Those standards had to be supported by the new core banking application. And of course, they were part and parcel of the SOA-specific infrastructure, which came courtesy of IBM: WebSphere DataPower appliances for service management and security; WebSphere Process Server for the ESB (enterprise service bus); and the WebSphere Service Registry and Repository for exposing service metadata and policies.

Overall, says Limerick, “We’re expecting a 2 percent reduction in our overall IT spend, which is actually pretty significant.” But he expects the most dramatic gains to be in the improved information services for customers and management. “This is a relationship bank,” he says, “and having that information readily available is vital.”

In addition, deploying data interfaces based on Web services standards will give Whitney much more flexibility down the road. For example, the bank has already eliminated its internal ACH (automatic clearing house) processing system and plugged into an ACH service provider instead with minimal effort.

As is often the case with SOA, the promise of future agility may be the ultimate upside. Dramatic reductions in the time to market for new services is a powerful motivator — especially in a highly competitive business. As Limerick says, “This bank made an investment in some pretty tough economic times” because the business side understood the potential.

“This whole endeavor wasn’t just IT — it went all the way to the board of directors.” That’s the kind of buy-in that gives an SOA initiative the best possible shot at success.

This article, “Why SOA still matters,” was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Read more of Eric Knorr’s Modernizing IT blog and follow the latest developments on SOA at InfoWorld.com.