<<Improving the reusability of business process and technology assets
helps businesses get to market faster, reduce costs and achieve more
consistent results. This important concept has recently been receiving
attention because Service Oriented Architectures (SOA) are enabling
businesses to achieve much more frequent and extensive reuse of
business services, software and data.
One of the main drivers for the adoption of SOA is the business need
to be more flexible and responsive to change. Change is part of the
business ecosystem. A long time business partner can suddenly become a
fierce competitor as the result of a merger. The dynamic between
partners, suppliers and customers is in constant flux. A business
loses the ability to adapt if its software and supporting IT
infrastructure is inflexible. And to become more flexible, a
comprehensive strategy for reuse is needed.
The Nature of Reuse
Reuse is by no means a new concept in IT. It has been tried in various
ways and at many levels from the use of source code libraries to the
building of software components within object oriented architectures.
When left to their own devices, experienced developers usually find
ways to reuse the code they have previously written or even use open
source code that is freely available on the Internet. But such reuse
is never consistent throughout software development teams and the IT
industry has never implemented reuse effectively in this way.
Within the SOA environment reuse is different because it is woven into
the architecture. Components of models, software, rules, and data are
made available for reuse in a way that ensures their accuracy,
consistency and predictability. This amounts to the business
governance of all the reusable assets. It isn't easily achieved, but
it is a worthwhile goal.
The reuse of IT assets is not so different from the reuse of
components in manufacturing. Automobile manufacturers do not make a
different engine for each model of car they sell; they make a small
range of engines and install them in a wide variety of models. Once a
new engine has been tested and documented, its reuse in a wholly new
model gets the new car to market much faster. The same is true of even
quite small components. Nowadays cars are designed to maximize reuse
at every leveland to everyone's benefit. And just as the reuse of
components in a production facility needs to be managed carefully, so
must the reuse of business services in a SOA environment. Reuse
without governance can be more destructive to the business than no
reuse at all.
Hurwitz & Associates has identified three major risks to the business
associated with reuse:
* Poor Process. This typically occurs when the level of
collaboration between business and IT is inadequate. Within SOA the
business and data services should accurately represent the business
processes followed by the organization. Collaboration between business
and IT needs to result in the business having a clear understanding of
which definitions of data make sense and when to use them, how to
apply rules and what level of granularity is appropriate for business
services. Effective reuse will be much harder to achieve unless there
is a framework in place that ensures that business and IT are singing
from the same song sheet.
* Poor Management of Code. Business processes are nearly always in
a state of flux, so it goes without saying that the software code that
codifies a specific business service may also change frequently. When
software components are changed then the changes apply
everywhereoften resulting in unintended consequences. Clear ownership
of reusable software/business services needs to be agreed to among all
business users. A strategy for reuse of business services must include
an approval process for changes which begins with the "owner" of the
business service.
* Lack of Overall Control. Without a structured process around the
governance of SOA, it is difficult if not impossible to maintain a
consistent set of rules for the enterprise as a whole. What if, for
example, each business unit in a transportation services company
follows a different process for extending credit to customers? Let us
imagine that the business wants to create a shared business service
for this process. The following questions must be answered: Who owns
the business process and how will changes be controlled? Who is
responsible for maintaining the consistency and quality of a shared
data source on customer credit information?
The first step to reaping the rewards of reuse is to understand the
risks involved. In order to ensure a successful strategy for reuse,
business and IT must first collaborate to understand, evaluate and
model the business process at their organization. The level of reuse
that can be achieved within a SOA environment increases when a
comprehensive approach to governance is applied at all levels of the
organization.
When you build business services based on services oriented approach,
you create modular and standardized building components that can be
linked together in various ways following a predictable set of rules.
These modular components can be reused in other situations and for
other departments or to meet other business needs. When this all comes
together a business can expect to benefit by increasing its speed to
market, trust of information, and flexibility to change.>>
You can read this at:
http://www.it-director.com/business/content.php?cid=9352
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