SOA: Signs Of Evolution

IBM's 1.5 Billion USD annual investment in SOA is perhaps beginning to show results.IBM announces the availability of the SOA Business Catalog, a compendium of reusable templates, code, and best-practice business models for 15 different industries. The catalog, to be released at first with 500 to 600 reusable resources, will accelerate SOA creation and solve specific business problems. The major benefits are around reuse and flexibility of services that are interchangeable and loosely coupled. Infoworld reports the catalog includes things, such as adapters, that will allow IT to connect its existing environment to Web services. Among the type of applications : the likes of adapters to wrap a Web service around legacy RPG code to create a service that fit into Amazon.com's shopping network. Over time the catalog is expected to include more than 3,000 templates, tools, and reusable Web service code. Some of the resources, all of which are declared as using SOA standards, will be free and open source while some have fees attached. I had a look at the list of the catalogue items listed here which has a comprehensive online directory of hundreds of reusable SOA assets from IBM and select business partners. Expected benefits : Speed time to value by reusing existing services, tools, components, and best practices for building your SOA environment.
The landscape for SOA is wide open and it shall be influencing virtually every aspect of software development and application bringing changes in the nature of usage,development - encompassing customer,product vendor and service offerings. I am under no illussion to call this a breakthrough, but certainly an important step forward. While the move may look small compared to the potential, it is indeed a big step.I shall write more on this later. Am off to catch a flight - travelling for the next three days.