Nearly half of UK companies are focusing on implementing
aservice-oriented architecture (SOA)for their IT operations, a survey has
revealed.
The SOA readiness survey of 180 UK organisations by
Birmingham-based systems integrator Griffiths Waite showed that of
the 47% of respondents pursuing SOA, 20% had already implemented at
least one SOA project.
And of that 20%, almost half (49%) said their main reason for
adopting SOA was to achieve IT flexibility and 14% said it would
enable them to get the most out of their IT investments by
providing industry standards for accessing functionality and
resources.
Hugh Griffiths, director of Griffiths Waite, said, "This shows
UK companies are starting to put money behind SOA, which represents
a definite shift away from technical discussions towards mainstream
implementation."
Griffiths said another reason for the shift was an increase in
the number and maturity of standards, such as the
Business Process Execution Language (BPEL) for specifying
business process behaviour for web services.
SOA adoption was also being driven by its inclusion in the
products of most major software suppliers, methodologies such as
The Open Group Architecture Framework (TOGAF), and process
optimisation programmes such as Six Sigma, he said.
Griffiths Waite has made its
SOA readiness survey
available online in partnership with IT analyst Butler Group and
Oracle.
Griffiths said the site was aimed at helping UK companies
achieve SOA by providing insights from Butler Group and enabling
them to view the Oracle SOA Maturity Model.