Services platform suppliers are delivering the
components for enterprise architecture, and IT chiefs need to plan
accordingly, says Mark Blowers.
Enterprise architecture could be the next big wave the
IT industry will have to ride, driven in part by the need for
compliance and a flexible, responsive IT environment. The IT market
will be fundamentally altered: suppliers will have to become
service-focused rather than technology-focused.
Adopting enterprise architecture will help to realign IT
developments with business aims. However, to be effective, there
must be more than high-level models - at the heart of this approach
is a services platform.
The combination of standards -based integration, flexible business
processes, unified information, composite applications and
real-time metrics is an extremely strong proposition, enabling an
approach to linking business processes to databases, legacy
systems, line-of-business applications and external services.
Even though some software suppliers have not yet publicly stated
their intention to evolve to common services platforms, the
transformation of their products has begun.
Services platform suppliers are beginning to deliver the components
for enterprise architecture. This will redraw the battle lines
between suppliers. Platform suppliers will offer generic services;
independent software suppliers will supply generic and
application-specific services; and system integrators will supply
services orchestration.
There will be a tussle between pure-play platform suppliers and
application software suppliers for the lion's share of the market.
Oracle and SAP will be looking to capitalise on their installed
customer bases and have already defined a vision for a
services-based platform and applications, whereas BEA, IBM,
Microsoft and Sun Microsystems are heavily promoting and developing
non-specific platforms.
But suppliers are keeping the impact these changes will have on
existing systems to themselves. Despite the availability of web
services and other integration technologies, the re-engineering of
current applications and the adoption of an enterprise architecture
is likely to take years. As suppliers make-over their products they
will become reluctant to support previous versions.
IT directors must audit their current systems so they have an
up-to-date understanding of what they have. Despite the
short-termism forced upon them because of recent belt-tightening
they must plan for migration over the next five years, even though
their suppliers may not have explicitly stated their
intentions.
IT management and the company boards must start considering and
deploying an enterprise architecture based around a balanced
business process and an informed view of operations. IT directors
will need to quickly redefine their objectives and develop a road
map for evolving to a services perspective.
The challenge will be to transform monolithic applications into
components and services before software suppliers stop supporting
systems that do not fully embrace enterprise architecture.
What do you think?
Have you started to plan for enterprise architecture?
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Mark Blowers is senior research analyst at
Butler Group