SOA 3.0 :)

It seems that every article I read at the moment has 2.0 appended to it, Web 2.0, SOA 2.0, China 2.0, Where 2.0, Identify 2.0, Business 2.0, blah, blah, blah. So I thought I would go one better and get a head-start on SOA 3.0 🙂

SOA 3.0 main focus will be SOA Organizational Architecture or the “Human Factor”. So kidding aside, 2007 will be the year that the people challenges of SOA will need to be addressed on multiple fronts.

Education and Mentoring is Key

There is still a gulf within companies in their understanding of the differences between a Service Oriented Architecture and a Web Services Architecture. SOA is not purely a technology play but encompasses all aspects of an IT Strategy/Enterprise Architecture and all of the “Human Factors” around those disciplines.

SOA Education is key to this understanding, not only for the development community but also the executives. Without this understanding the non-technical aspects of SOA will not be given its rightful focus. Specifically developed SOA education and consulting programs aimed at Executives covering topics such as SOA concepts and principles, SOA Costs and benefits and SOA Organization and Governance are required

SOA Governance Model

As more and more companies have started expanding their SOA projects across several lines of business they have not automatically achieved the same level of benefits that were encountered in the initial projects. This has been mainly down to the “Human Factors” required for cross-divisional SOA projects such as interaction/collaboration and change management.

Companies are starting to appreciate the need for a pragmatic SOA governance model that addresses the political, organizational and culture change aspects of SOA and not to rely on tools such as service registries and repositories alone.

SOA + BPM

Even though both initiatives have been around a while, they are now on the fast-track to converge into one over-arching initiative to finally achieve their intended goals. SOA focusing on architecture allows BPM an enabling platform to execute upon while BPM enables SOA to achieve its business and IT alignment focus.

On the whole, BPM is a business-driven initiative whereas SOA is an IT-driven initiative. With the main focus of the SOA + BPM initiatives enabling cross-divisional processes, this will bring greater “Human Factors” to the fore-front.

So 2007 is the year of SOA 3.0 🙂