Building a business case for SOA

What is service-oriented architecture (SOA)? If you can't answer this question — don't worry, you're in good company. And if you're scratching your head on how SAP's ESA vision fits in with SOA – once again, you are not alone. You're sure to hear more about SOA and ESA at Sapphire in Orlando next month. But if you want an overview ahead of time, check out our new ROI tip written by Axel Angeli, our NetWeaver, ESA and EAI expert. We just launched the tip, Building a business case for SOA today. It includes a valuable PowerPoint presentation accompanied by a plain-english explanation of SOA and ESA.    

As Axel says in his presentation, to SOA or not SOA?, is not even a question. SOA will soon be a necessity, and that means that failing to implement the ESB in time could hurt your IT efficiency and business capabilities.

SOA will not only eliminate redundancy but also dramatically enhance data quality, accelerate data discovery and allow for innovative customer services. By this standard, many CIOs will save money and get more sleep.

Overall, the two main reasons to transform your IT for SOA are enhancing the reliability of work and erasing unnecessarily redundant technologies. Both goals are mainly achieved through establishing a common reusable infrastructure ("services") along with a flexible common interfacing standard.

Want to learn how to prepare a business case for SOA? Check out our new tip by Axel Angeli, and then read more of his advice at his site, www.logosworld.com. Don't miss the others in this three part series: Building a business case for SAP: BW and Building a business case for SAP: NetWeaver.