What are the benefits of SOA?

What are the benefits of Service Oriented Architecture SOA?

Service-oriented architecture is, first and foremost, a means of attaining greater business agility from existing IT investments. Service Oriented Architecture SOA-based solutions connect systems and thereby automate previously manual information-transfer processes whether the goal is to develop new applications; to connect systems, workgroups, or geographically distributed subsidiaries; or to collaborate with trading partners. At the same time, Service Oriented Architecture SOA solutions build in the essential services required to ensure that the appropriate resources are accessed by the appropriate users.

Service Oriented Architecture SOA benefits accrue for the organization at two different levels, that of the IT organization and that of the business user; in the end, all benefits add up to a dramatic increase in agility and productivity.

From the IT department’s point of view, Service Oriented Architecture SOA-based integration simplifies management of distributed resources across multiple platforms, requires less hardware, is more reliable, is standards-based, and is less costly.

From the business point of view, Service Oriented Architecture SOA enables development of a new generation of dynamic applications addressing a number of top-level business concerns that are central to growth and competitiveness. Service Oriented Architecture SOA solutions promote:

• Stronger connections with customers and suppliers. By making dynamic applications and business services available to external customers and suppliers, not only is richer collaboration possible, but also customer/partner satisfaction is increased. Service Oriented Architecture SOA unlocks critical supply and demand chain processes—such as outsourcing of specific business tasks—from the constraints of underlying IT architectures, thereby enabling better alignment of processes with organizational strategy.

• Enhanced business decision making. By aggregating access to business services and information into a set of dynamic, composite business applications, decision makers gain more accurate and more comprehensive information. They also gain the flexibility to access that information in the form and presentation factor (Web, rich client, mobile device) that meets their needs.

• Greater employee productivity. By providing streamlined access to systems and information and enabling business process improvement, businesses can drive greater employee productivity. Employees can focus their energies on addressing the important, value-added processes and on collaborative, semi-structured activities, rather than having to conform to the limitations and restrictions of the underlying IT systems.