Service-oriented development of applications (SODA) is the
best way to approach globally distributed application development
and maintenance, according to a new report by Gartner.
The research group says that the principles of service oriented
architectures – assembly and orchestration, loose coupling,
standardisation, use of registries, enterprise service buses and
process-centricity – can bring cost savings and other benefits such
as reduction in errors and increases in the speed of
development.
Gartner Research vice-president, Joseph Feiman, said, “One of the
reasons to consider SODA in a global model is that your development
partners may already have artefacts to reuse and assemble. Because
SODA is still evolving, global partners and providers do not yet
consistently have registries of reusable artefacts to employ.
However, they should become commonplace as SODA matures.”
An example of the use of SODA in global application development,
according to Feiman, is assembly and orchestration - the bringing
together of many single processes and directing the way they work
as a larger whole.
“This can be done at locations that differ from where the services
were developed, which enables optimal ratios between quality of
skills and the cost of globally distributed skills. For example,
services could be developed at offshore locations with low labour
costs, while the assembly and orchestration could be done at
on-site locations where business expertise is concentrated, thus
balancing cost and skills,” said Feiman.
Likewise Feiman takes the concept of loose coupling, where services
are easily and quickly connected or detached to make larger
processes, and applies that to application development, with small
teams working in different locations being assigned tasks that fit
the overarching project.
“It is easier for globally distributed application development
teams to develop loosely coupled services than monolithic
applications. It is also easier to assemble teams and assign work,
as well as track bugs, issues, status and progress. This ease of
use is not related to technology as much as to all the human
factors inherent to a small, localised team environment,” he
said.
The study goes on to outline how standardisation, registries,
enterprise service buses and process-centricity can all be
incorporated into a methodology for consistently successful
application development.