IBM SOA - Reuse

What is service creation and reuse?

Service creation and reuse is an IT-centric entry point to service oriented architecture (SOA) that focuses on deriving continued and additional value from previous asset investments, identifying services to be outsourced and designing new services to fill portfolio gaps. By viewing an SOA project from a service creation and reuse aspect, you can significantly lower development and maintenance costs and risks - enabling you to take new services and offerings to market faster.

The value of service creation and reuseImprove efficiency. Reduce risk. Cut cost. Existing applications are among the most valuable assets a company owns. Applications throughout the enterprise support core business processes and handle the majority of customer, product, supply chain and channel information. Reuse of these common functions will encourage repeatable business behaviour and reduce the chance of errors in execution or data capture; maximizing the reuse of these services enhances business flexibility and provides a return on investment. Another reason to focus more on repeating, common functions is to ensure your business can differentiate itself both internally and externally. The IBM entry strategy to SOA through service creation and reuse can help:

Reduce the amount of new code that must be created for business initiatives.Lower maintenance cost by eliminating redundant systems.Expedite the roll-out of new business functions by creating shareable composite services and functions from within your applications.Integrate tasks performed by your legacy applications into broader business functions to establish a simple and effective means to enhance usefulness of mainframe-based systems and provide the capability wider across the business.Resolve through faster, simple responsiveness challenges such as technology obsolescence, skills scarcity or significant business events including merger or acquisition.Identify already existing functions such as CRM access in existing applications and processes.Extend green-screen applications to the Web or to an SOA to realize immediate payback in reduced end user training and improved staff productivity.

Successful reuse of IT assets is at the very core of an effective and cost-efficient SOA. With continual constraint on resources and a need for agile response to changes in market opportunities, as well as a drive for high quality code in production, reuse of proven existing and new assets becomes essential in meeting these needs.

Source: For more IBM SOA, visit IBM SOA - Reuse.