WHI TE PAPER

A St udy i n Cr i t i c al Succe ss Fact or s f or SOA

Sponsored by: Hewlett-Packard

Sandra Rogers
September 2008
SUCCESS I N AN SOA WORLD

S t r i v i n g f o r S u c c e s s
There are many ways to assess whether an IT or business initiative is successful. In today's
highly complex and competitive world, expectations run high for the delivery of discrete
results across a variety of dimensions, including financial performance, business opportunity
and impact, risk mitigation, better customer service, and so forth. More than ever, IT projects
and solutions are underwritten for and aimed at very specific, measurable business goals.
Thus, enterprises have over time built out many silos of applications and systems that, while
addressing particular needs, often cannot be leveraged or combined effectively to address
new or cross-cutting business concerns and may depend on specialized skill sets. These
systems and their underlying infrastructures are no longer able to keep pace with business
demand and, along with other objectives tied to furthering efficiency and innovation, are
contributing heavily to the keen interest in adopting Service-oriented architecture (SOA).
According to IDC research, many IT professionals embarking on SOA programs typically
envision their primary benefit to be code and service reuse, whereas those having already
implemented SOA to some degree often report the most important capabilities obtained as
overall flexibility and ability to respond with solutions faster to market. It is interesting that the
former objective is more tactical and technically focused, and the latter more about strategic
alignment and support for overall business pursuits. Therefore, approaches taken while
adopting SOA may vary and be more or less constrained by individual perceptions. SOA
may also be measured along a potentially diverse span of expectations. Nothing is assured,
however. Preparing for both short- and long-term success across a continuum of requisites
is critical to driving initial and much-needed ongoing support.
This IDC study investigates the importance of certain factors and explicit activities that
contribute to successful SOA initiatives. Field research was specifically designed to capture
and provide insight into actionable steps one can take toward achieving success based on
real-world examples and advice from organizations that have effectively instituted SOA.
Findings from this research were compiled and analyzed and a success factor framework
created to help guide individuals in the strategic planning and implementation of a results-
oriented SOA-based initiative.

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Organizations now
seek to create more
adaptable IT
environments that can
better withstand
change, offer more
flexible sourcing
options, and more
readily support
unforeseen
conditions.
2 #214146 2008 IDC

Wh a t Ma k e s S O A U n i q u e ?
SOA is an approach that no two organizations implement identically. This is especially true
given that most enterprises have a unique IT topology and differentiating business attributes.
Therefore, what constitutes the overall architecture, specific services, and resulting
composite solutions will vary. However, one must look beyond certain physical
manifestations and more toward how to drive a cohesive and collaborative effort. Also, while
there may be some similarities in advice given for other types of large business and IT
initiatives, SOA exposes and magnifies certain needs.
SOA initiatives are typically longer-term strategic endeavors where benefits are cumulative
and thus the need to drive consistency and protocols is essential. An enterprise-scale SOA
program can involve a far greater number of individuals and activities than a traditional
development project, and its highly shared foundation raises to prominence activities
focused on managing service interactions and relationships.
While SOA initiatives certainly require varied degrees of technology change, key challenges
identified and overcome by most successful enterprises often have less to do with
technology and much more to do with nurturing the cooperation and behavior of individuals
and the organization as a whole. These initiatives require, as well as inspire, greater
collaboration and more of a communal or social networklike atmosphere, yet they also
must operate under a watchful eye.
SOA I NI TI ATI VES: BREAKI NG THE CODE

Wh a t D e f i n e s a S u c c e s s f u l S O A I n i t i a t i v e ?
Our studies have shown that individuals from various roles in an organization often have
different perceptions regarding what SOA represents, how they rate adoption and maturity
levels with respect to their SOA-based endeavors, and how they measure and perceive
success. Thus, the specific goals, experiences, and perspectives of a CIO may be
somewhat different from those of a chief architect and then again of someone in the
development ranks or on a quality team.
For example, chief architects are often most focused on establishing an SOA program and
expanding its pervasive use. Driving more participation will lead to greater value and warrant
investing in the underlying infrastructure to support services that interoperate across varied
scenarios and boundaries. Instituting standardization will better enable system compatibility,
manageability, and compliance, and the better one can align services with business
constructs, the more likely one is able to support and respond to ongoing enterprise needs
and promote greater understanding between IT and business factions. Yet, for a developer,
SOA success may mean something different, perhaps the ability to achieve one's project on
time or how easy it is to attend to one's tasks on a day-to-day basis. Meanwhile, operations
staff may be more concerned about guaranteeing service security, availability, and reliability,
along with managing the impact on underlying systems.
SOA is not a discrete
"project" that is taken
on and completed in a
set period of time, but
an overarching
initiative and
perspective to be
embraced.
2008 IDC #214146 3
From a business perspective, it's all about results that affect the bottom line. This translates
to a variety of dimensions, such as enabling capabilities to:
! Access appropriate information for decisions and business activities on demand
! React to customer and partner needs more rapidly
! Collaborate among peers and team members more effectively
! Better unify operations in the advent of a merger or acquisition
! Ensure that information and activities adhere to regulations
! Drive more efficient, integrated processes
! Improve overall efficiency and reduce cost of business and IT operations
Some IT professionals may believe that specific business stakeholders do not need to be
aware that SOA is fueling such accomplishments. However, IDC has found that successful
organizations discover that it really does matter on multiple fronts, helping to better
communicate and thus define business services and processes, and to glean the right level
of participation and financial support.

K e y A s p e c t s o f S O A I n i t i a t i v e s
Those pursuing SOA endeavors must make the leap from focusing on individual
development projects to deploying a holistic program that coordinates activities and builds
capabilities as services designed with the enterprise in mind. While discrete projects still
have their place, they must be managed within the greater context. Defining, funding, and
measuring projects will also likely need to change as organizations focus on the
development and long-term management of services that support a variety of applications
and stakeholders. Essentially, for broad SOA adoption, most existing IT processes will need
to be amended to some degree.
Organization and Program Management
Many individuals when first considering SOA tend to focus on technology; for example,
adopting an enterprise service bus (ESB), designing interfaces and service messages, or
supporting specific standards. While technology decisions do matter, often overlooked is that
at its heart an SOA represents a business program and not a mere suite of technologies.
While SOA may be targeted at making IT assets more effective, it is an overarching
discipline that relies on the input and utilization of services by varied constituents. Therefore,
SOA is as much about setting into motion the processes and policies for individuals and
systems to follow as it is about implementing technology. It requires some up-front planning
and management on an ongoing basis.
SOA is as much
about setting into
motion the processes
and policies for
individuals and
systems to follow as it
is about implementing
technology.
4 #214146 2008 IDC
Enterprise Architecture and Enabling Technology
Many organizations embarking on SOA develop a reference architecture that outlines discrete
capabilities and supporting technologies. Some chief architects IDC interviewed having
successfully implemented SOA tend to deemphasize their focus on mandating the use of
discrete products and highlight the criticality of determining overarching patterns and policies
that uphold the architecture and define how and where technologies must support them.
Although a technical reference architecture can be defined, it is usually instantiated project
by project. Some organizations may need to allow for some level of variation as long as
standards and protocols are maintained. While the concept of utilizing standards is still
critical, some organizations may opt to standardize on particular offerings to ease certain
issues of vendor interoperability and obtain certain benefits tied to this type of consolidation.
For the most part, however, enterprises implementing technology for SOA opt for a more
multivendor, best-of-breed approach. In a recent IDC poll, more than half of the respondents
indicated this as their preferred approach for purchasing and deploying SOA solutions.
Indeed, this support for ongoing heterogeneity is one of the major draws for adopting SOA.
The ability to interface and engage with the many varied components in a dynamic way is an
important defining facet of such environments and highlights the need to design an
infrastructure that can manage an expanding network of interactions and the flexible
composition of services. From an individual service as well as from a holistic system
perspective, services need to be defined, created, discovered, qualified, implemented,
accessed, tracked, and managed across development and runtime environments not just
from an SOA-specific context but in relation to the overall IT environment and solution base.

C h a l l e n g e s t o A c h i e v i n g S O A S u c c e s s
Chief architects, CIOs, and other leaders driving SOA initiatives often find themselves in the
role of chief evangelist and politician. They must navigate and effect change on multiple
levels, encouraging new organizational structures and processes be set to support these
goals. Change does not happen overnight, so fortitude and patience are required.
The more decentralized the overall environment, the more transparent, governed, and
automated certain functions must become to gain utmost value and effectiveness. Handling
certain dimensions manually may work while in a proof of concept (POC) and early stages of
adoption; however, some challenges may arise when attempting to scale out and build
greater participation. Greater coordination between service providers and consumers needs
to be nurtured. Many organizations in our study become, as one interviewee noted, "a victim
of success," as key stakeholders start to ramp up service development and use before any
real foundation is laid.
When establishing an SOA program, garnering participation and instantiating trust, gaining
support in the face of time-crunched delivery goals, navigating funding and budgetary
considerations, and addressing the availability and level of overall skills and experience all
can indeed be challenging. Multiple IDC studies indicate the top challenge to adopting SOA
to be finding and acquiring skills for SOA. And according to our most recent poll, the next
most noted challenge is in setting up an SOA governance structure. This finding in part
reflects a maturing of overall SOA market adoption trends and aspirations to build out more
enterprise-scale initiatives.
SOA embodies a
business architecture
as well as impacts
many facets of
application,
information, and
infrastructure
systems. It also
traverses silos of
computing domains,
raising to the forefront
the need to
coordinate
overarching concerns.
Multiple IDC studies
concur that the most
critical factors for
successful SOA
initiatives are less
related to technology
and more related to
the ability of people to
adapt to and embrace
all the needed
concepts and
procedures.
2008 IDC #214146 5
When Web services first gained popularity, there was great anxiety regarding security
issues; however, since then, the IT industry has been hard at work addressing these
concerns, and security is now much less of an issue if proper measures are taken. The
scalability of SOA infrastructure and overall architectural constructs is another issue that
vendors continue to address with advances in product performance and further educating
clients on best practices in assembling more complex processing patterns.
Most enterprises that have embarked on SOA do find significant value and continue to
increase their overall SOA efforts. Maintaining proper expectations is crucial, however.
Nearly half of the respondents to a recent IDC study expect a return on their investments to
take over a year or more. Thus, it is imperative to always maintain a longer-term
perspective. Reaching goals of reuse and sharing of system elements takes time, as does
attaining experience in designing services and interfaces effectively. Most important, a
robust understanding of the business should be infused into the overall architecture and
services deployed. Without such alignment, it becomes hard to measure what SOA has
contributed and strategize on where and how to best leverage it in the future.
SOA SUCCESS FACTOR FRAMEWORK
As mentioned previously, this research project studied organizations that have successfully
deployed SOA. Based on their experience, we summarized into a single framework the most
important factors driving their success, along with associated activities and enabling
technologies that positively influence these factors.

P u t t i n g t h e F r a me wo r k i n C o n t e x t
This summary of critical success factors, placed within the context of a framework, is not
designed to provide a financial or business model explicitly for measuring value or success,
as such efforts should be performed in a more customized manner. Further, this framework
is not a maturity model or readiness assessment mechanism, although it is highly
complementary to such tools as an aid in strategy and planning.
The framework is meant to highlight those activities found in our study that were particularly
important in driving successful SOA initiatives. Thus, while some standard elements of an
SOA initiative may be called out, it is not meant to be an exhaustive review of every single
element, activity, and supporting technology that could present itself as part of an SOA
environment or initiative. There can be multiple facets to an individual element, such as the
topic of funding, that could warrant a much more intensive review and synthesis than is
designed to be covered in this particular analysis. As well, each element may contribute at a
different rate of intensity to the success of an initiative, varying by organization and scenario.

Me t h o d o l o g y
A qualitative-based research study, using semistructured interviews based on an interview
guideline, was performed during the first half of 2008. These interviews were specifically
designed to identify those factors most critical to the success of the organization's SOA
initiative, along with pertinent information on IT organization and business structures, IT
environment and solutions, business and technical drivers and challenges, and other vital
dimensions. This manner of research allowed for the ability to delve as needed into relevant
6 #214146 2008 IDC
subjects in context to the interviewee's organization and experience and not predispose the
findings to preconceived factors. This study was designed not to delve deep into technical
patterns and issues but to identify and analyze concerns that have a more strategic impact
on the success of SOA initiatives.
Study participants were recruited from United States and Europe-based organizations that
have implemented enterprise SOA programs, with representation across various sizes and
industries. Industries represented in the study included finance, telecommunications, utilities,
retail, and technology. Representatives interviewed were a combination of CIOs, chief
architects, and other IT management professionals, typically with enterprisewide responsibility.
Experience with SOA programs in these organizations ranged from 2.5 years to over 8 years.

D o ma i n s , S u c c e s s F a c t o r s , a n d A c t i v i t i e s
While there may be countless factors and activities that can contribute to the successful
implementation of an enterprise-scale SOA initiative, this framework identifies those
"success factors" deemed most relevant to our study subjects (see Tables 17 and Table A
in Appendix A for the framework itself). These factors are categorized into "domains" for
discussion purposes. For each critical success factor, we identify one or more key goals or
activities as examples of actionable steps that can be taken.
In the interest of condensing the framework for readability and discussion purposes, we
have not specifically called out all relationships. Therefore, a critical success factor may
impact multiple domains, and a specific activity may contribute to multiple success factors.
Specific conditions may also exist that influence an individual enterprise's approach to and
effectiveness in addressing certain activities. Such dimensions as organizational dynamics
or level of skilled resources are thus among many dimensions to be further considered.

E n a b l i n g T e c h n o l o g i e s a n d S e r v i c e s
Most reference architectures for SOA span almost every dimension of infrastructure and
enabling technology, as SOA indeed affects a full computing environment, not one particular
solution or toolset. IDC tracks a variety of capabilities and supporting technologies for an SOA
environment. These include facets of service mediation, monitoring, policy and operational
management, identity and security, registries and repositories, development and composition
tools, life-cycle management, quality and testing tools, orchestration and business process
automation, data services technologies, and more.
Interviews with key representatives driving their organizations' SOA programs typically
highlight where certain matters should have been addressed sooner or where too much
attention was paid too early, often to particular dimensions of technology, when addressing
other activities may have been much more helpful. It is important to note that some of the
organizations studied that have successfully adopted and advanced their enterprise SOA
programs began their initiatives years ago. In some of these cases, certain technologies
may not have been available or as advanced as they are now, having some influence on
specific tactics taken. On the other hand, these organizations may have already
implemented and addressed a good portion of technology-related issues while building out
their core SOA infrastructure and thus might not raise these as concerns at this particular
point in time. Therefore, this framework does not delve deep into technology requirements
for an SOA; however, it does highlight where technologies enable particular success factors
for the overall SOA initiative.
This framework does
not delve deep into
technology
requirements for an
SOA; however, it
does highlight where
technologies enable
particular success
factors for the overall
SOA initiative.
2008 IDC #214146 7
LARGEST I MPACTS ON SOA SUCCESS:
FRAMEWORK HI GHLI GHTS
While there are a variety of ways to organize the critical success factors, activities, and
supporting technologies identified in this research that support these endeavors, we have
aggregated these elements within the following domains:
# Business alignment
# Organizational change management
# Communications
# Trust
# Architecture
# Scale and sustainability
# Governance
Each of these domains, and many of the associated critical success factors and activities,
impact one another, stressing the importance of planning for and addressing all of these
concerns in a synergistic fashion. For example, a strong governance program takes into
consideration effective communications and helps ensure that the overall initiative is
scalable and sustainable by developing strong guidelines, processes, and procedures. Also,
by enforcing certain governance practices, organizations can more readily establish and
maintain an environment of trust.
Reinforcing this notion of synergy, aligning business goals with every step taken is another
cross-dimensional attribute. In turn, some organizations are applying SOA techniques to
advance how they bring products and services to market with more configurable and
streamlined definitions and boundaries. These efforts all require effective organizational
change management disciplines and communication practices to gain proper support, input,
and follow-through.
The following sections present each domain, highlighting an example or two of critical
success factors, supporting activities, and technology enablers found to contribute highly in
driving success in those specific domains. These and other factors are then summarized into
associated tables for each domain and when aggregated compose the framework as a
whole.

B u s i n e s s A l i g n me n t
Those individuals shepherding their organizations' SOA ventures do recognize that these
are truly business endeavors; however, most reported that SOA still is most often perceived
by others in their organizations as a technical initiative, especially at the onset. Even so,
these key influencers understand that overall SOA success requires better business
alignment, shared consensus, and deeper levels of participation and as such are particularly
focused on driving those dynamics.
The most pertinent
aspects of
establishing a
successful SOA
initiative involve
strong business and
IT leadership and
management
disciplines.
8 #214146 2008 IDC
Most of our research subjects identified business support and involvement to be a critical
success factor. Some IT teams that embark on SOA just keep the whole thing as an
undercover operation and do not believe that trying to sell and make the business aware of
SOA is important, as long as they are implementing it behind the scenes. IDC has discovered,
however, that the more educated and involved business stakeholders are early on in the
process whether in determining what services are needed, defining and outlining business
processes, or agreeing to specific ownership and funding models the more aligned the
outcomes are, and the greater the perceived success of the overall SOA initiative. Additionally,
with greater business support come greater levels of cooperation and synergy.
Securing executive management support is a given for any key cross-enterprise initiative.
Showcasing and publicizing senior management involvement and commitment, and
communicating background for the significant decisions and actions being undertaken, is
important. But it is also imperative that this support expands beyond words. This may
include addressing complex issues, such as aligning incentives, addressing funding models,
helping secure resources, and other such variables.
Almost as critical as aligning funding is selecting the right individuals with proper insight as
well as influence in their respective divisions to become involved. These participants need to
be able to step beyond their own individual perspectives and grasp the dynamic nature of
SOA and its impact on the enterprise as a whole. Some organizations find that if those
impassioned individuals driving the SOA initiative leave the organization, then progress is
frequently stifled and often for a significant period of time. It is critical to retain and support
these leaders as well as quickly drive broader interest and experience.
Table 1 highlights some of the key success factors, activities, and enabling technologies that
can positively influence attaining business alignment for SOA initiatives.

T ABL E 1
Ke y S OA P r o g r am S uc c e s s F ac t o r s : BUS I NES S AL I GNMENT
Critical Success
Factor
Key
Practice
Supporting
Activity
Supporting
Technology
Impact/
Benefit
Focus on enterprise
business goals and
strategies

Perform regular
business analysis
reviews and identify
which business
processes and
elements to address
Outline "as is" and "to
be" service and
business process
capability models
Portfolio analysis tools Provide traceability to
the business model
Define processes and
services in business
terms and at the
appropriate level(s) of
detail
Provide a coherent
taxonomy of business
services and
processes
SOA
registry/repository,
architecture tools
Create and reinforce a
common vocabulary
between IT and
business; improve
businesses'
understanding of SOA
concepts
Adopt services
incrementally while
building toward
strategic road map
Target common
information-centric
services first
Data services
technologies
Ensure continued
relevance, utilization,
and reuse of what is
designed and
maintained
2008 IDC #214146 9
T ABL E 1
Ke y S OA P r o g r am S uc c e s s F ac t o r s : BUS I NES S AL I GNMENT
Critical Success
Factor
Key
Practice
Supporting
Activity
Supporting
Technology
Impact/
Benefit
Business support and
involvement
Showcase executive
management
sponsorship, support,
and involvement (and
for some organizations,
mandate)
Align SOA activities
with business goals
Reinforce cooperation
and overall buy-in;
drive urgency for
change
Involve key business
stakeholders in the
analysis and design
process
Have IT and business
stakeholders meet
regularly
Modeling, project mgt Improve probability
business objectives
are met
Identify SOA business
champion(s)
Involve those individuals
with influence and a
keen understanding of
the business
Capture critical insight
into business
parameters
Value measurement Develop methods to
measure return on
investment and effort
in relation to business
goals
Set proper short- and
long-term business
expectations
SOA monitoring and
mgt, business
intelligence

Obtain/provide clarity
about outcomes;
ensure focus on
priorities
Highlight what each
individual can gain and
expect to change
Better manage
expectations
Showcase early and
ongoing benefits
SOA mgt Strengthen
commitment and buy-
in
Align funding model Obtain enterprise
funding where
possible; able to
proactively fund
shared program and
technologies
Implement metrics on
services usage and
value
SOA monitoring and
mgt
Drive adoption,
activity, and
cooperation; allocate
costs appropriately
Source: IDC, 2008


O r g a n i z a t i o n a l C h a n g e Ma n a g e me n t
Key to the success of any SOA initiative is addressing human and organizational factors,
including the culture and the methods of how the organization operates. It is typical human
behavior to resist change and rely upon known and established practices, especially when
job responsibilities, business performance metrics and incentives, and information or
process ownership may be at stake.
Among some of the most critical success factors for addressing organizational change in an
SOA initiative is that of empowering individuals with the skills and education necessary to
participate and make the most of the overall program and environment. Beyond working with
specific techniques and technologies, this can also include advancing the abilities of IT staff
to look beyond technical parameters and embrace much-needed business-oriented service
10 #214146 2008 IDC
perspectives. Some organizations may find they need to adjust certain roles and department
structures, driving skills alignment and potential for growth and advancement. Business
users may also need special education, more specifically around the business case,
benefits, and challenges of this approach and methods to capture process and service
requirements.
According to our interviews of successful organizations, many develop a core group of SOA
architects and experts who, at early stages, work directly with the various business analyst,
development, quality, and operational teams, mentoring and ensuring that projects adhere to
proper policies and architectural tenets. Once these teams have had some experience, they
are better prepared to address subsequent projects independently. This type of personalized
attention also promotes a tremendous amount of goodwill and understanding between
enterprise architects and the development teams. All gain tremendous insights into what
works well given specific conditions, reinforcing the development and propagation of best
practices.
When possible, successful organizations automate best practices so they can apply
resources to higher-value tasks. Best practices may be automated in a number of ways; for
example, autocoding compliant Web services, integrating repository solutions with
development tooling, or ensuring services have tests associated with them before advancing
to the next development stages via policies within service life-cycle management software.
Policy management software can further define and help validate that standards such as
WS-I compliance or naming standards are adhered to automatically, saving significant effort
and cost downstream.
Table 2 highlights some of the key success factors, activities, and enabling technologies that
can positively influence organizational change management endeavors for SOA initiatives.

T ABL E 2
Ke y SOA P r o g r am S uc c e s s F ac t o r s : ORGANI ZATI ONAL CHANGE MANAGEME NT
Critical Success
Factor
Key
Practice
Supporting
Activity
Supporting
Technology
Impact/
Benefit
Resource alignment Build and sustain a
culture that embodies
an enterprisewide view
Adapt traditional IT
and business
organization structures
and models to embody
services approach
Provides clear
message of
commitment to SOA;
drives greater
business alignment
Recruit and retain key
personnel or
"champion"
spearheading adoption
Train, coach, manage,
execute, and enforce
best practices

Recognition/incentive
program
Showcase and
recognize popular
services, value gained,
contribution, and
measurement
Expose metrics on
service usage; use
recognition program
for "carrot" approach
SOA monitoring Drive increased
participation;
recognize and
reinforce best
practices; increase
morale at a time of
change
2008 IDC #214146 11
T ABL E 2
Ke y SOA P r o g r am S uc c e s s F ac t o r s : ORGANI ZATI ONAL CHANGE MANAGEME NT
Critical Success
Factor
Key
Practice
Supporting
Activity
Supporting
Technology
Impact/
Benefit
Skills and education Create and evolve
education program;
provide tools and
training for both IT and
business stakeholders
Training at different
levels and stages of
evolution of SOA
program and adoption
maturity; key
stakeholders, internal
and external, must be
identified
Nurture understanding
of the nuances of SOA
Propagate
understanding and
best practices
Invite interested
parties to lunch and
learn

Have enterprise arch
work side by side with
distributed biz, dev,
and app arch on
projects as needed
Provide advice and
empower individuals
with knowledge to
properly drive SOA
forward
Automate best
practices where
possible
SOA policy mgt, SOA
life-cycle mgt, SOA
contract mgt
Ease adoption and
reinforce consistency
and quality
Source: IDC, 2008


C o mmu n i c a t i o n s
Strong communications and driving common understanding between parties certainly
improve most any activity or initiative. This is especially true when an organization is
changing procedures and addressing activities that cross organizational boundaries. SOA
initiatives inherently fit those criteria. While SOA promotes the concept of loose coupling and
services created to be independent of any specific implementation, in reality, by combining
services, a host of logical dependencies occur. The ability for a consuming party to rely on a
service requires utmost trust that the service will be delivered as promised. Building up that
level of trust is key to eliciting greater participation. Enhanced levels of transparency,
access, and communications about services and related business and system aspects can
help pave the way.
One of the most critical success factors in driving strong communications across the SOA
community is establishing an infrastructure to gather and expose all the pertinent information
and assets to be shared, providing the right level of visibility and discoverability into available
services, with definitions, policies, and conditions of service delivery and engagement.
Information into the history and quality of a service's performance, understanding who is
responsible for the service, receiving alerts when there are anticipated changes and
revisions to a service, and more help build greater confidence in the shared service model
overall. There are a series of products that support service visibility, consumption, and
description. The most common technologies involved are SOA registries and repositories,
portals, wikis, and other collaboration and knowledge management tools.
12 #214146 2008 IDC
Table 3 highlights some of the key success factors, activities, and enabling technologies that
can positively influence an effective communications strategy to support SOA initiatives.

T ABL E 3
Ke y SOA P r o g r am S uc c e s s F ac t o r s : COMMUNI CAT I ONS
Critical Success
Factor
Key
Practice
Supporting
Activity
Supporting
Technology
Impact/
Benefit
Advocacy Set up live group and
personalized 1:1
meetings to educate
and promote SOA
program
Articulate meaning of
SOA and its benefits in
a simple and concise
manner
Improve clarity
Socialize concepts and
procedures before
formalizing avoid
"mandate" unless
required
Meet separately with
key and influential
personnel at early
stages of campaign
Glean greater
acceptance and
participation
Awareness Create and maintain a
central knowledge base
"portal" to aggregate
and disseminate
information and help
coordinate activities for
the overall program,
with documentation,
status, metrics, and
services information
Develop views (i.e.,
dashboards and
reports) for specific
roles and interests
Collaborative and
business intelligence
software technologies,
portals, search, wikis;
SOA repository, SOA
life-cycle mgt, SOA
monitoring and mgt
Strengthen and
expand "network" of
service providers and
consumers
Ensure stakeholders
are well-informed and
involved on a continual
basis
Invite interested
parties to "lunch and
learn" sessions
Maintain long-term
focus, participation,
and knowledge
Visibility and discovery Provide a means for
providers and
consumers of services
to search for and
negotiate
implementation and
use of services
Provide easy access
and interactive system
to services,
documentation, and
resources; service
catalog management
SOA
registry/repository,
portal, search
Reinforce service
development and
reuse
Formalize a
mechanism to arrange
for service
negotiations, SLAs,
and approval
processes, etc.
Automate activities
and information flow
between service
providers and
consumers
SOA policy mgt, SOA
contract mgt, SOA mgt
Simplify process to find
and negotiate terms of
services; drive greater
use of service; gain
efficiencies/time; define
responsibilities and
avoid potential conflict
Progress reporting Provide monitoring
and feedback on
progress of program
Advertise and
evangelize results
Groupware, project
mgt
Improve and reinforce
SOA disciplines
Obtain regular
feedback from key
stakeholders on needs
and experiences

Source: IDC, 2008
2008 IDC #214146 13

T r u s t
Creating an atmosphere of trust is crucial to nurturing any type of shared and collaborative
environment. Organizations and individual service providers must ensure those leveraging
services are authorized to do so and under approved circumstances. However, once these
basics are addressed, it really all boils down to overall quality of service to build acceptance
and to encourage service users to engage and depend on services provided by others.
In a traditional development paradigm, trust is not nearly as important, as individuals and
teams actively try to contain as much of the solution as possible and relying on external
sources is typically seen as a risk factor. Conversely, with SOA, reusing existing services is
encouraged and seen as an enabler for increased standardization and improved time-to-
market performance.
In any environment, addressing and validating technical functionality, availability, and
performance remain critical. For SOA, upholding policies; accommodating the complexities
of multistep, long-running processes; and navigating logical dependencies and semantic
relationships require added diligence and activities to address. While there are operational
tactics to help track and manage some of these dimensions once in production, proactively
auditing services and solutions at various stages of development helps organizations
mitigate risk, design more effective systems, and garner that very important trust factor. In
addition, strong processes for reducing time to resolution of issues encountered in
production, operational reporting on actual results, and proactive testing are effective ways
to measurably improve quality of service and showcase results, helping build trust and
inspiring greater service consumption and reuse.
One quality assurance (QA) professional interviewed in our study highlighted the need to
engage QA personnel and activities much earlier in the service development process. These
activities include participation in service planning, notification of service development
schedules, and visibility into anticipated consumption patterns. This requires that the QA,
development, and architecture organizations collaborate in ways they never have before
working together, for example, on establishing QA procedures; defining quality metrics
required to move from one life-cycle stage to another; and creating a common
understanding about the business impact and risks associated with different services and
applications. Many organizations aspire to provide automated service test capabilities to
developers to speed up and help build in quality earlier to help them iterate and simulate
varied service and business process configurations.
Table 4 highlights some of the key success factors, activities, and enabling technologies that
can positively influence building a more trusted environment for SOA initiatives.



14 #214146 2008 IDC
T ABL E 4
Ke y SOA P r o g r am S uc c e s s F ac t o r s : TRUST
Critical Success
Factor
Key
Practice
Supporting
Activity
Supporting
Technology
Impact/
Benefit
Performance,
availability, and
reliability of services
managed to SLAs and
contracts
Define and configure
contract and SLA
variables
Provide more granular
visibility and service
behavior management
SOA monitoring and
mgt, SOA policy mgt,
SOA contract mgt
Drive greater service
use and quality
Document service
history and metrics
Portal, SOA repository,
SOA mgt
Build trust in services
for use/reuse
Security Provide a secure and
trusted IT environment
Centrally provide and
support
common/uniform
security services
enterprisewide
SOA security Protect services from
unauthorized access
or misuse
Establish an
enterprisewide identity
management
(authentication)
strategy
Identity rights mgt
software
Enable access to
stakeholders; ability to
extend services and
environment
Quality Verify standards and
policies are being
implemented
Integrate testing
policies and resources
early and automatically
throughout life cycle

SOA policy mgt, test
mgt, service test
Risk mitigation; ensure
compliance; reduce
defects and
subsequent costs due
to rework
Prepare to
accommodate and
validate composite
solutions and business
processes
Understand and
perform dependency
analysis and
composite testing
Dependency analysis/
SOA repository,
functional and
performance test mgt,
service and business
process testing
Reduce potential
defects and process
bottlenecks
Source: IDC, 2008


A r c h i t e c t u r e
Many individuals get distracted with services-based application architecture techniques
versus thinking of the holistic enterprise computing environment. Pursuing SOA implies a
focus on overall enterprise concerns and strategies and the needs of multiple applications
and stakeholders. The role of EA continues to grow in importance as organizations look to
best capitalize on all their investments, create more harmonized views of information and
cross-domain processes, and ensure corporatewide fiscal and regulatory compliance.
Businesses have struggled for years with issues of integration, interoperability, and
overall complexity in building and maintaining systems. Although concepts and practices of
EA persist, most organizations have amassed a cadre of fragmented systems and
computing silos, not necessarily adhering to key tenets and standards set forth. Due to
many business and economic forces, large enterprises are now buckling under the weight
and cost in trying to sustain this situation. The tide is shifting, though, as a result of
2008 IDC #214146 15
organizations' efforts to standardize and ease how developers and other personnel support
common architecture and communication protocols via tooling and infrastructure. There is
also such demand to interact and leverage the Internet to its fullest, prompting the design of
more formal strategies.
Most organizations are thus looking to find the right balance of structure to create and
maintain consistency while still allowing for agility, and they have found this balance through
the use of SOA. Many of our SOA success study participants advised against getting hung
up on industry debates and stalling movement while waiting for all standards to be fleshed
out. It is, however, critical to determine which enterprise and industry-specific standards an
organization should uniformly follow at any given point of time and evolve these as
necessary. Because the future is difficult to predict, and because standard interfaces are
typically longer-lived than proprietary interfaces, many of our study organizations are
adopting open standards when possible. This reduces the chance of vendor lock-in as new
products are introduced and new technology approaches are devised.
Providing guidance and support by developing a well-designed and tested reference
architecture and corporate practices for applying SOA constructs for solutions is critical. Per
one organization interviewed, developing a standard approach imparts tremendous
consistency and leverage and eliminates up-front consternation on how to proceed with any
given project. Sometimes, by instituting an enterprise reference architecture across the
organization, the centralized architecture team may also take on a stewardship role for
common infrastructure and services.
Table 5 highlights some of the key success factors, activities, and enabling technologies that
can positively influence a strong architecture for SOA initiatives.

T ABL E 5
Ke y SOA P r o g r am S uc c e s s F ac t o r s : ARCHI TECT URE
Critical Success
Factor
Key
Practice
Supporting
Activity
Supporting
Technology
Impact/
Benefit
Institutionalize
enterprise SOA
reference architecture
Define SOA
architecture principles
and IT technology
standards
Develop architecture
program prior to
procuring and
implementing
infrastructure and
supporting
technologies
Architecture modeling
and analysis tools
Avoid vendor
dependencies, mitigate
risks, allow necessary
distributed and
federated flexibilities to
drive participation while
maintaining
compatibility
Update existing IT
processes and
standards considering
SOA

Prototype physical
reference architecture,
standard interfaces
and schemas,
processing patterns;
adjust as needed
Undertake strong proof
of concept to prove out
architecture and
technologies
All SOA-related
infrastructure and
technologies
Show successful
application of
architecture and
technologies to
enhance buy-in
16 #214146 2008 IDC
T ABL E 5
Ke y SOA P r o g r am S uc c e s s F ac t o r s : ARCHI TECT URE
Critical Success
Factor
Key
Practice
Supporting
Activity
Supporting
Technology
Impact/
Benefit
Disseminate
knowledge via
definitions,
documentation, and
guidance
Ensure understanding
and adoption by
decentralized
resources and teams
with personalized
assistance from EA
experts
Drive consistency and
compliance

Standards Determine and
document enterprise
standards and
protocols
Aspire to adopt more
open standardsbased
frameworks and
technologies and
prepare to
accommodate
alternative scenarios
as needed
SOA policy mgt Promote greater
consistency,
interoperability,
management, and
future portability
Autoconfigure code
during development
and institute quality
control measures
Integrated SOA life-
cycle mgt, SOA policy
mgt, and service test
mgt
Simplify and ensure
compliance of key
standards
Focus on support of
standards and
governance rather
than mandate explicit
technologies
Allow distributed
teams some flexibility
as long as tested to be
compatible
Implement cross-
enterprise services
mgt discipline
Apply consistent,
centralized oversight
throughout
environment
Provide and support
common uniform
monitoring,
measurement, and
management services
enterprisewide
Scalable, performant,
nonintrusive
technology
Avoid rogue services;
ease burden on
distributed
development teams;
reinforce consistency,
security, and quality
Source: IDC, 2008


S c a l e a n d S u s t a i n a b i l i t y
It is critical to ensure that whatever systems are implemented can be sustained over time
and that they be able to interface with other types and generations of technology. Ideally, an
enterprise should create a strong foundation that can accommodate not only current but also
future demands. Many organizations that launch SOA programs find they reach a critical
juncture when a greater volume of services, varied usage models, and more complex
solutions emerge. More automation and control from an overall program point of view is then
needed. However, some organizations experience significant problems when even an
individual service experiences unexpected activity and demand, stressing application
processes and underlying infrastructure.
2008 IDC #214146 17
It is critical to prepare for larger-scale deployments from the very beginning along
multiple dimensions from an underlying technology perspective; from a service, process,
and solution design perspective; and from an overall SOA environment and governance
perspective. Developing a full systems architecture and infrastructure strategy that can
accommodate distributed and federated workloads and newer technical capabilities such
as virtualization is essential. Properly estimating and addressing the impact that SOA may
levy on each component of the environment, whether servers or data sources,
authentication and encryption patterns, or session management and caching strategies,
should be part of overall procedures. To point, one enterprise in our SOA success study
indicated that it could not have supported the level of activity demanded by its large
customer base if it weren't for supporting its services and infrastructure with virtualization
software. This tactic not only helped keep up with peak demands but also added another
layer of security into the mix.
Another key point is that many organizations starting out with SOA do not implement the
technology or procedures for governance in a scalable fashion and then midstream need to
add particular automated capabilities for service life-cycle, policy, and operational
management. In hindsight, most enterprises admit that it took some time to discover this
issue and strongly advise others to not fall into that same pattern and to plan for the
extended and growing network of participants in the SOA environment, both human and
technology based.
Table 6 highlights some of the key success factors, activities, and enabling technologies that
can positively influence the ability to scale and sustain strong SOA initiatives.

T ABL E 6
Ke y SOA P r o g r am S uc c e s s F ac t o r s : S CAL E AND SUSTAI NABI L I TY
Critical Success
Factor
Key
Practice
Supporting
Activity
Supporting
Technology
Impact/
Benefit
SOA program
scalability
Plan for long-term and
enterprisewide SOA;
however, develop
program to support
incremental adoption
and implementation
Centralize EA but
disseminate
knowledge for
implementation;
prepare for
federated/distributed
participation
SOA life-cycle mgt;
SOA policy mgt, SOA
contract mgt
Plan for unknown and
variable conditions;
build in proper
flexibility for long-term
success
Develop strategic
service portfolio
SOA registry/
repository, portfolio
mgt
Improve alignment
with business and IT
priorities
Technical scalability Ensure selection/use
of robust infrastructure
capable of handling
more intense and
distributed demand
Capacity management

SOA mgt, virtualization
technologies, XML
optimization,
performance mgt; data
caching tools
Ensure environment
able to support
exponential growth
and multiple message
and interaction types
(asynch and synch)
18 #214146 2008 IDC
T ABL E 6
Ke y SOA P r o g r am S uc c e s s F ac t o r s : S CAL E AND SUSTAI NABI L I TY
Critical Success
Factor
Key
Practice
Supporting
Activity
Supporting
Technology
Impact/
Benefit
Ensure infrastructure
and processing
patterns can
accommodate
federated and
distributed processing
models
SOA mgt, ESB, SOA
policy mgt

Service granularity Services and
processes are to be
defined in business
language and at the
appropriate detail
Start with more atomic
and independent
services and evolve
when prepared to
accommodate
composite services,
processes, and logical
dependencies
SOA repository,
portfolio mgt
Improve flexibility and
auditability
Source: IDC, 2008


G o v e r n a n c e
SOA governance goes well beyond providing guidance on how to build compliant services. It
should ensure that the integrity of the overall architecture and supporting IT environment is
upheld to technical and business directives. This covers many activities, from instituting a
reference architecture, to structuring policies and procedures, to establishing roles and
responsibilities, and more. Service portfolios, priorities, and relationships should be charted,
with mechanisms to uniformly classify and manage services and associated artifacts
throughout their life cycle.
There are many tools and automated techniques that can facilitate governance in
particular, the use of service registries and repositories; life-cycle automation; and contract,
policy, and service management engines. These technologies can help organizations
manage pertinent metadata, such as that used for the discovery, consumption, and
operations of services. At the onset of many SOA-based initiatives, organizations frequently
put into place development practices and policies and work to influence individuals into
following specific standards. However, as the program expands, unless there is more
automation and integration throughout to ensure adherence and thoroughness, some
organizations find themselves creating redundant and noncompliant services, or expending
too many resources manually checking service compliance, and thus reducing overall value
of the initiative.
One of the tactics of successful adopters is integrating specific SOA governance procedures
early on into existing IT governance processes, thus helping ease the transition and work
toward introducing additional steps over time as they evolve.
2008 IDC #214146 19
One enterprise in our study required information regarding services provisioning and
consumption be submitted in order to requisition the necessary infrastructure and hardware
for any given project. Thus, a procedure that was already in place took on additional
dimensions to accommodate and reinforce the use of services. Another firm worked to
automate the development of standard Web services code to proactively ensure compliance
and ease the burden on those new to developing services.
What is certain is that nearly all those interviewed in our study reported that if they could
do one thing differently, they would have started a stronger and more automated
SOA governance program earlier. A few participants highlighted that time spent debating
and evaluating SOA technologies could have been much better used in defining standards,
policies, and best practices, and then subsequently ensuring that any infrastructure selected
would accommodate these concerns. Reinforcing this point, one organization remarked,
"As soon as we had a single service that we cared about, we should have deployed
automated governance with basic policy and contract management. This would have
clarified the relationship between the service provider and service user and prevented
multiple escalations."
Table 7 highlights some of the key success factors, activities, and enabling technologies that
can positively influence building out a solid governance program to support an enterprise
SOA initiative.

T ABL E 7
Ke y SOA P r o g r am S uc c e s s F ac t o r s : GOVERNANCE
Critical Success
Factor
Key
Practice
Supporting
Activity
Supporting
Technology
Impact/
Benefit
Develop strong SOA
governance program
at early stages of
initiative
Create consistency
from day 1 with proper
services design,
development,
implementation, and
life-cycle management
policies
Prepare for
advancements in
service volume and
complexity
SOA registry/
repository, SOA policy
mgt, SOA life-cycle
mgt, SOA contract
mgt, business
intelligence
Reinforce standards
and proper
procedures; avoid
fragmentation of
results
Actively engage key
stakeholders in helping
set direction and solicit
input; presell before
instituting
Refine practices and
reinforce acceptance
Integrate SOA and
overall IT governance
processes
Inject change into
existing procedures
versus creating anew;
nonintrusive
technology approach
try not to disrupt
existing procedures
and activities
integrate in as much
as possible
Improve acceptance
and ease cooperation;
avoid roadblocks that
could compromise
ongoing projects
20 #214146 2008 IDC
T ABL E 7
Ke y SOA P r o g r am S uc c e s s F ac t o r s : GOVERNANCE
Critical Success
Factor
Key
Practice
Supporting
Activity
Supporting
Technology
Impact/
Benefit
Development practices
and policies
Focus on architecture,
standardization, and
protocols; nonintrusive
technology approach
try not to disrupt existing
procedures and
activities integrate in
as much as possible
Simplify and
categorize project
types, submission and
approval
considerations
Development tools,
project mgt, SOA life-
cycle mgt

Automate adherence
to protocols via
development and other
technologies
SOA policy mgt,
development tools,
ESB, and other SOA
infrastructure

Design policies Create and adhere to
standards and naming
conventions
Services catalog, SOA
registry/repository
(integrated with) SOA
life-cycle mgt, SOA
portfolio mgt, SOA
policy mgt
Promote consistency
and service quality
Define and assign key
roles and
responsibilities
Identify and distribute
ownership and
responsibility to
business and IT
stakeholders
Consider ownership
and responsibilities for
enterprise and
domain-centric
services, processes,
and information/data
SOA registry/
repository, SOA life-
cycle mgt
Drive distributed
ownership and
accountability
Develop an
accountability
framework
Resource alignment and
clarity of expectations
signal commitment of
senior mgt
Develop and engage
proper individuals in
an SOA "Center of
Excellence" (COE)
program
Drive best practices
and expertise
Establish review
committee(s) for
ongoing decisions and
management of
priorities, approvals,
and changes
Priorities and
approvals set based
on business goals and
policies; put into place
resolution procedures
SOA life-cycle mgt Avoid conflicts and
drive efficiencies
SOA and service
life-cycle mgt
Involve all stakeholders
in the life cycle in an
integrated fashion
Provide workflow-
based system
SOA life-cycle mgt,
BPM
Improve consistency
and compliance
Define processes to
address change mgt
and versioning of
services
Automate service
change management
practices; support
dependency analysis
SOA life-cycle mgt,
ALM, config mgt, SOA
repository
Maintain compliance
and properly manage
any dependencies
Runtime practices and
policies
Nonintrusive technology
approach integrate
into existing procedures
and activities as much
as possible
Provide automated
operational
infrastructure
integrated with
common policy
implementation and
management tools
SOA mgt, SOA policy
mgt, ESB, and/or other
policy enforcement
mechanisms
Provide more
consistent and
comprehensive
processing across the
environment
Source: IDC, 2008
2008 IDC #214146 21
SOA: LEARNI NG FROM EXPERI ENCE

Wh e r e t o B e g i n a n d H o w t o B r o a d e n t h e S O A
F o o t p r i n t
Those not yet adopting SOA often highlight challenges in effectively identifying business
cases and prioritizing the pursuit of an SOA initiative vis--vis other activities. Most
individuals in our study pointed out that SOA is more often than not considered an IT agenda
by others and that it truly needs to be embraced by the business. They also indicated that
often to jump-start an enterprise initiative, zeroing in on specific business projects to prove
out the approach and show value is critical.
Regarding starting an SOA initiative, our study participants offered some of the lessons they
have learned, including:
! Target a specific pain point that can impact more than one application or business unit
! Engage strong individuals with influence and political finesse to drive the initiative
! Communicate and educate on all fronts

S e r v i c e s a n d Mo r e S e r v i c e s
Many organizations start their SOA efforts by creating infrastructure or technology services,
such as security, monitoring, and auditing functions. These types of services help free up
business application programmers to address more added-value activities and also drive
consistency to enterprise protocols and create an environment that is much more efficient
when changes occur. As a side value, it helps reinforce more reuse of services in general by
supporting a more secure and governed environment. Other common targets for services
are common information views, reinforcing consistency and simplifying the overall
environment. Creating a foundation of data services such as this can thus provide a huge
benefit.
Regardless of type and variety of services, the need to manage them from concept to
implementation and then through to retirement is important. Based on our studies,
organizations that put off using some form of service registry and/or repository often
indicated they wish they had done so from the onset. By tracking services, they can best
promote and utilize services and ensure that policies and technical relationships are
established and maintained in a more automated fashion.
Other key points identified in this study include:
! Organizations often find that once their SOA initiatives start to ramp up, many services
created are found to be noncompliant with established standards and protocols. Merely
expecting adherence to policy and implementing manual efforts to monitor services are
not enough. Design and governance policies should be established as early as possible
and implemented in an automated fashion through tools and infrastructure.
! Security and consumer authentication is a critical point to include in the message
header for services. While some organizations didn't opt to make this an initial
requirement, they have found this to be an important dimension that requires rework.
22 #214146 2008 IDC

B e n e f i t s C r e a t e d f r o m S O A I n i t i a t i v e s
According to the interviewees for this particular SOA success study and other IDC primary
research, enterprises are finding good value from their SOA efforts. A recent survey of
individuals involved in or planning SOA implementations indicated that more organizations
are satisfied than dissatisfied with their initiatives. However, taking a realistic view of how
long it will take to ramp up and reap benefits is critical and certainly can help toward setting
proper expectations. A majority of respondents to that same survey anticipate a return on
their investments in 1324 months, and nearly a third expect returns sooner. Yet, value is
often gleaned immediately and in multiple ways.
Some of the major benefits highlighted during IDC's interviews for this SOA success factor
study include:
! Faster time to market with solutions
! Agility to address changing business requirements
! Ability to roll out new types of capabilities, products and services, and business
channels, especially leveraging the dynamic and global nature of Web-based, dynamic,
and real-time systems
! Better customer and partner relations and ease of doing business
! Cost savings due to reduced efforts, number of systems, and infrastructure
! Promoting consistency in information and experience

Wo r d s o f A d v i c e
In collecting words of advice from our study participants, we noted the following takeaways:
! Define and enforce policies and protocols as early as possible. Lay a foundation with
more automated techniques such as services repositories, policy management engines,
and services management and monitoring.
! Presell and lobby proposed policies. Gaining key individuals' buy-in early through such
efforts makes for smoother acceptance and transition.
! Training is critical. As stated by one of our study participants, "The training aspect is
easily looked past, and if you don't have people who understand basic concepts and
terms, and the difference between a traditional application and a group of services,
you're not going to build an SOA."
! Put more effort into business modeling. Many of these early movers that have seen
success with SOA have reached a point where a more holistic assessment of the
business needs to take place, which involves mapping out key business structures,
assets, and processes in a cohesive and comprehensive form.
! Don't put off governance. It is important to agree on and enforce corporate and IT
policies and standards to avoid rework and fragmentation.
2008 IDC #214146 23
! Apply techniques for performance optimization and validation. Many discovered the
need for approaches to address expanding demand and performance requirements.
! Take the time to assess available products. Although it is enticing to move to an
incumbent provider for one's SOA technology, some offerings may not be robust or
mature enough, or may be more difficult than others to utilize effectively.
! Use less IT speak and more business terminology. This applies everywhere, from
naming services to aligning overall SOA program priorities.
! Focus on architecture. According to one chief architect, "Web services does not equal
SOA. You have to really focus on architecture not just the technology and standards.
If not, you just may have a better EAI or service integration with better interfaces, but
not SOA."
! Don't fixate on specific technology. Many executives in our study noted how easy it is to
first focus too much on technology, such as selecting and standardizing on, even
mandating use of, a specific product. Most, however, warn others to place their efforts
on setting organizational standards and policies and to avoid vendor selection debates.
Some large organizations, due to their distributed nature, may need to allow participants
the ability to implement their own technology options. Standards and policies set forth
must ensure the necessary interoperability, processing, and management of service
regardless of any explicit implementation. Then, subsequently, proof of concepts can be
designed to test out a specific solution to see if it meets criteria and can scale as
needed.
! Prepare for process. More complex service orchestration and process endeavors have
been typically addressed by these organizations after setting into place a foundation for
SOA. A few study participants pointed out the importance of up-front planning to
accommodate this activity within architectural and governance structures.
CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNI TI ES, AND
I MPLI CATI ONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH
Although from diverse organizations, most of the individuals interviewed for this particular
study were from IT management and enterprise architecture roles. Due to the broad reach
and impact of enterprise SOA-based initiatives, and as experience in the marketplace
unfolds, collecting insight from the many participants and stakeholders across the enterprise
will help further derive finer understanding of best practices and determinants of success.
While organizations often make strategic decisions to adopt SOA more broadly, most
implement SOA in incremental phases. This does influence patterns of adoption, and thus
resulting outcomes. Understanding not only what steps are taken but the order in which they
are pursued and how that impacts success is another dimension to examine further. Thus,
IDC recognizes the need for continuous research in this dynamically evolving space and to
further develop the success factors framework.
24 #214146 2008 IDC
Each organization must assess and develop its SOA strategy geared to its own distinct set
of structural, behavioral, and business conditions. However, IDC has discovered that some
institutions that believe themselves to be so unique often overlook that there are several
common goals and challenges across the marketplace at large, and therefore valuable
knowledge to be gleaned from others.
Many organizations are looking to take advantage of new, emerging technologies, such as
Web 2.0 or cloud computing, and to leverage third-party services and on-demand, software-
as-a-service (SaaS) solutions. These all are enabled and optimized by SOA albeit under the
guise of different names and complexions. Thus, preparation for this inevitable direction for
computing in the years ahead is advised.
IT vendors are, however, at risk of deterring enterprises from deploying SOA by making
technology acquisition and implementation options too complex. Vendors should continue to
work toward easing the transition to this new architecture by ensuring greater interoperability
and support for specific standards and protocols, by designing various options for licenses
and engagements that can scale as needed, and by evolving solutions to accommodate
SOA-based patterns of computing alongside other design and deployment paradigms.
Above all, vendors should continue to expose and educate on specific best practices and
ways to become successful in SOA endeavors.
THE EXPANDI NG SERVI CE- ORI ENTED REALM
Understanding that SOA is really a strategy with both business and technical facets is
important to always keep in mind. Focusing on organizational goals, processes, structures,
and behavioral dynamics is critical. Doing so has effectively set apart those that have
successfully introduced SOA and aligned IT with business needs.
Adopting SOA-based techniques does not necessarily require a whole system overhaul
some existing systems can be leveraged and the environment built out incrementally as
needed. Those organizations that have already deployed SOA are now placing pressure on
others in their industries based on the new capabilities and differentiation they now can
exercise through greater automation and faster response and processing time frames.
Therefore, it behooves most organizations to examine their overall enterprise architecture
strategies and become better aware of all the techniques and options for technologies at
their disposal. Also, those that may have evaluated SOA and specific technologies years
ago may be surprised to learn about the advancements that have taken place.
One can plan strategically but still move tactically, propagating the creation and utilization of
services and SOA practices step by step. However, discipline needs to be brought to the
overall environment and community of stakeholders, with oversight and the implementation
of a base of foundational governance and infrastructure. Once established, the environment
can grow as needed and more effort can be spent on driving business success through the
power of this type of flexible computing paradigm.

Services orientation
can come in a variety
of forms;
organizations should
be prepared to both
capitalize on and
mitigate risks for
adopting SOA in the
large, if not now, then
sometime in the very
near future.
2008 IDC #214146 25
APPENDI X A
Table A presents the SOA program success factors framework.
This framework is meant to provide highlights of some of the most differentiating factors and activities that contribute to a
successful enterprise SOA program. It is not meant to be an extensive list of all activities involved in implementing SOA-based
systems, nor is it meant to dive deep into facets of technology or architecture.
These success factors have been organized into overarching domains, and samples are provided of key supporting practices, activities,
and technologies found to have a positive impact on these factors. While certain relationships between success factors, activities,
technologies, and benefits have been presented, they should not be considered mutually exclusive to those particular associations, as
many dimensions impact one another. In addition, some technologies listed in the framework may not explicitly be prefaced with the
term "services" or "SOA" in the interest of readability; however, do assume specific SOA and services capabilities exist.

T ABL E A
S OA P r o gr a m Su c c e s s F a c t o r s F r ame wo r k
Key Domain Critical Success Factor Key Practice Supporting Activity Supporting Technology Impact/Benefit
Business
alignment

Focus on enterprise
business goals and
strategies

Perform regular business
analysis reviews and identify
which business processes
and elements to address
Outline "as is" and "to be"
service and business
process capability models
Portfolio analysis tools Provide traceability to the
business model
Define processes and
services in business terms
and at the appropriate
level(s) of detail
Provide a coherent
taxonomy of business
services and processes
SOA registry/repository,
architecture tools
Create and reinforce a
common vocabulary between
IT and business; improve
businesses' understanding of
SOA concepts
Adopt services
incrementally while building
toward strategic road map
Target common information-
centric services first
Data services technologies Ensure continued relevance,
utilization, and reuse of what
is designed and maintained
Business support and
involvement
Showcase executive
management sponsorship,
support, and involvement
(and for some organizations,
mandate)
Align SOA activities with
business goals
Reinforce cooperation and
overall buy-in; drive urgency
for change
26 #214146 2008 IDC
T ABL E A
S OA P r o gr a m Su c c e s s F a c t o r s F r ame wo r k
Key Domain Critical Success Factor Key Practice Supporting Activity Supporting Technology Impact/Benefit
Involve key business
stakeholders in the analysis
and design process
Have IT and business
stakeholders meet regularly
Modeling, project mgt Improve probability business
objectives are met
Identify SOA business
champion(s)
Involve those individuals
with influence and a keen
understanding of the
business
Capture critical insight into
business parameters
Value measurement Develop methods to
measure return on
investment and effort in
relation to business
goals
Set proper short- and long-
term business expectations
SOA monitoring and mgt,
business intelligence

Obtain/provide clarity about
outcomes; ensure focus on
priorities
Highlight what each
individual can gain and
expect to change
Better manage expectations
Showcase early and
ongoing benefits
SOA mgt Strengthen commitment and
buy-in
Align funding model Obtain enterprise funding
where possible; able to
proactively fund shared
program and technologies
Implement metrics on
services usage and value
SOA monitoring and mgt Drive adoption, activity, and
cooperation; allocate costs
appropriately
Organizational
change
management

Resource alignment Build and sustain a culture
that embodies an
enterprisewide view
Adapt traditional IT and
business organization
structures and models to
embody services approach
Provides clear message of
commitment to SOA; drives
greater business alignment
Recruit and retain key
personnel or "champion"
spearheading adoption
Train, coach, manage,
execute, and enforce best
practices

Recognition/incentive
program
Showcase and recognize
popular services, value
gained, contribution, and
measurement
Expose metrics on service
usage; use recognition
program for "carrot"
approach
SOA monitoring Drive increased participation;
recognize and reinforce best
practices; increase morale at
a time of change
2008 IDC #214146 27
T ABL E A
S OA P r o gr a m Su c c e s s F a c t o r s F r ame wo r k
Key Domain Critical Success Factor Key Practice Supporting Activity Supporting Technology Impact/Benefit
Skills and education Create and evolve
education program; provide
tools and training for both IT
and business stakeholders
Training at different
levels and stages of
evolution of SOA program
and adoption maturity; key
stakeholders, internal and
external, must be identified
Nurture understanding of
the nuances of SOA
Propagate understanding
and best practices
Invite interested parties to
lunch and learn

Have enterprise arch work
side by side with distributed
biz, dev, and app arch on
projects as needed
Provide advice and empower
individuals with knowledge to
properly drive SOA forward
Automate best practices
where possible
SOA policy mgt, SOA life-
cycle mgt, SOA contract mgt
Ease adoption and reinforce
consistency and quality
Communications
Advocacy Set up live group and
personalized 1:1 meetings
to educate and promote
SOA program
Articulate meaning of SOA
and its benefits in a simple
and concise manner
Improve clarity
Socialize concepts and
procedures before
formalizing avoid
"mandate" unless required
Meet separately with key
and influential personnel at
early stages of campaign
Glean greater acceptance
and participation
Awareness Create and maintain a central
knowledge base "portal" to
aggregate and disseminate
information and help
coordinate activities for the
overall program, with
documentation, status,
metrics, and services
information
Develop views (i.e.,
dashboards and reports) for
specific roles and interests
Collaborative and business
intelligence software
technologies, portals,
search, wikis; SOA
repository, SOA life-cycle
mgt, SOA monitoring and
mgt
Strengthen and expand
"network" of service
providers and consumers
Ensure stakeholders are
well-informed and involved
on a continual basis
Invite interested parties to
"lunch and learn" sessions
Maintain long-term focus,
participation, and knowledge
28 #214146 2008 IDC
T ABL E A
S OA P r o gr a m Su c c e s s F a c t o r s F r ame wo r k
Key Domain Critical Success Factor Key Practice Supporting Activity Supporting Technology Impact/Benefit
Visibility and discovery Provide a means for
providers and consumers of
services to search for and
negotiate implementation
and use of services
Provide easy access and
interactive system to
services, documentation,
and resources; service
catalog management
SOA registry/repository,
portal, search
Reinforce service
development and reuse
Formalize a mechanism to
arrange for service
negotiations, SLAs, and
approval processes, etc.
Automate activities and
information flow between
service providers and
consumers
SOA policy mgt, SOA
contract mgt, SOA mgt
Simplify process to find and
negotiate terms of services;
drive greater use of service;
gain efficiencies/time; define
responsibilities and avoid
potential conflict
Progress reporting Provide monitoring and
feedback on progress of
program
Advertise and evangelize
results
Groupware, project mgt Improve and reinforce SOA
disciplines
Obtain regular feedback
from key stakeholders on
needs and experiences

Trust
Performance, availability, and
reliability of services managed
to SLAs and contracts
Define and configure
contract and SLA variables
Provide more granular
visibility and service
behavior management
SOA monitoring and mgt,
SOA policy mgt, SOA
contract mgt
Drive greater service use
and quality
Document service history
and metrics
Portal, SOA repository, SOA
mgt
Build trust in services for
use/reuse
Security Provide a secure and
trusted IT environment
Centrally provide and
support common/uniform
security services
enterprisewide
SOA security Protect services from
unauthorized access or
misuse
Establish an enterprisewide
identity management
(authentication) strategy
Identity rights mgt software Enable access to
stakeholders; ability to
extend services and
environment
Quality Verify standards and
policies are being
implemented
Integrate testing policies
and resources early and
automatically throughout life
cycle
SOA policy mgt, test mgt,
service test
Risk mitigation; ensure
compliance; reduce defects
and subsequent costs due
to rework
2008 IDC #214146 29
T ABL E A
S OA P r o gr a m Su c c e s s F a c t o r s F r ame wo r k
Key Domain Critical Success Factor Key Practice Supporting Activity Supporting Technology Impact/Benefit
Prepare to accommodate
and validate composite
solutions and business
processes
Understand and perform
dependency analysis and
composite testing
Dependency analysis/SOA
repository, functional and
performance test mgt,
service and business
process testing
Reduce potential defects
and process bottlenecks
Architecture
Institutionalize enterprise
SOA reference architecture
Define SOA architecture
principles and IT technology
standards
Develop architecture
program prior to procuring
and implementing
infrastructure and
supporting technologies
Architecture modeling and
analysis tools
Avoid vendor dependencies,
mitigate risks, allow
necessary distributed and
federated flexibilities to drive
participation while
maintaining compatibility
Update existing IT
processes and standards
considering SOA

Prototype physical reference
architecture, standard
interfaces and schemas,
processing patterns; adjust
as needed
Undertake strong proof of
concept to prove out
architecture and
technologies
All SOA-related
infrastructure and
technologies
Show successful application
of architecture and
technologies to enhance
buy-in
Disseminate knowledge via
definitions, documentation,
and guidance
Ensure understanding and
adoption by decentralized
resources and teams with
personalized assistance
from EA experts
Drive consistency and
compliance

Standards Determine and document
enterprise standards and
protocols
Aspire to adopt more open
standardsbased
frameworks and
technologies and prepare to
accommodate alternative
scenarios as needed
SOA policy mgt Promote greater
consistency, interoperability,
management, and future
portability
Autoconfigure code during
development and institute
quality control measures
Integrated SOA life-cycle
mgt, SOA policy mgt, and
service test mgt
Simplify and ensure
compliance of key standards
30 #214146 2008 IDC
T ABL E A
S OA P r o gr a m Su c c e s s F a c t o r s F r ame wo r k
Key Domain Critical Success Factor Key Practice Supporting Activity Supporting Technology Impact/Benefit
Focus on support of
standards and governance
rather than mandate explicit
technologies
Allow distributed teams
some flexibility as long as
tested to be compatible
Implement cross-enterprise
services mgt discipline
Apply consistent, centralized
oversight throughout
environment
Provide and support
common uniform monitoring,
measurement, and
management services
enterprisewide
Scalable, performant,
nonintrusive technology
Avoid rogue services; ease
burden on distributed
development teams;
reinforce consistency,
security, and quality
Scale and
sustainability

SOA program scalability Plan for long-term and
enterprisewide SOA;
however, develop program
to support incremental
adoption and
implementation
Centralize EA but
disseminate knowledge for
implementation; prepare for
federated/distributed
participation
SOA life-cycle mgt; SOA
policy mgt, SOA contract
mgt
Plan for unknown and
variable conditions; build in
proper flexibility for long-
term success
Develop strategic service
portfolio
SOA registry/repository,
portfolio mgt
Improve alignment with
business and IT priorities
Technical scalability Ensure selection/use of
robust infrastructure capable
of handling more intense
and distributed demand
Capacity management

SOA mgt, virtualization
technologies, XML
optimization, performance
mgt; data caching tools
Ensure environment able to
support exponential growth
and multiple message and
interaction types (asynch
and synch)
Ensure infrastructure and
processing patterns can
accommodate federated
and distributed processing
models
SOA mgt, ESB, SOA policy
mgt

Service granularity Services and processes are
to be defined in business
language and at the
appropriate detail
Start with more atomic and
independent services and
evolve when prepared to
accommodate composite
services, processes, and
logical dependencies
SOA repository, portfolio
mgt
Improve flexibility and
auditability
2008 IDC #214146 31
T ABL E A
S OA P r o gr a m Su c c e s s F a c t o r s F r ame wo r k
Key Domain Critical Success Factor Key Practice Supporting Activity Supporting Technology Impact/Benefit
Governance
Develop strong SOA
governance program at
early stages of initiative
Create consistency from day
1 with proper services
design, development,
implementation, and life-
cycle management policies
Prepare for advancements
in service volume and
complexity
SOA registry/repository,
SOA policy mgt, SOA life-
cycle mgt, SOA contract
mgt, business intelligence
Reinforce standards and
proper procedures; avoid
fragmentation of results
Actively engage key
stakeholders in helping set
direction and solicit input;
presell before instituting
Refine practices and
reinforce acceptance
Integrate SOA and overall IT
governance processes
Inject change into existing
procedures versus creating
anew; nonintrusive
technology approach try
not to disrupt existing
procedures and activities
integrate in as much as
possible
Improve acceptance and
ease cooperation; avoid
roadblocks that could
compromise ongoing
projects
Development practices and
policies
Focus on architecture,
standardization, and
protocols; nonintrusive
technology approach try
not to disrupt existing
procedures and activities
integrate in as much as
possible
Simplify and categorize
project types, submission
and approval considerations
Development tools, project
mgt, SOA life-cycle mgt

Automate adherence to
protocols via development
and other technologies
SOA policy mgt,
development tools, ESB,
and other SOA
infrastructure

Design policies Create and adhere to
standards and naming
conventions
Services catalog, SOA
registry/repository
(integrated with) SOA life-
cycle mgt, SOA portfolio
mgt, SOA policy mgt
Promote consistency and
service quality
32 #214146 2008 IDC
T ABL E A
S OA P r o gr a m Su c c e s s F a c t o r s F r ame wo r k
Key Domain Critical Success Factor Key Practice Supporting Activity Supporting Technology Impact/Benefit
Define and assign key roles
and responsibilities
Identify and distribute
ownership and responsibility
to business and IT
stakeholders
Consider ownership and
responsibilities for
enterprise and domain-
centric services, processes,
and information/data
SOA registry/repository,
SOA life-cycle mgt
Drive distributed ownership
and accountability
Develop an accountability
framework
Resource alignment and
clarity of expectations signal
commitment of senior mgt
Develop and engage proper
individuals in an SOA
"Center of Excellence"
(COE) program
Drive best practices and
expertise
Establish review committee(s)
for ongoing decisions and
management of priorities,
approvals, and changes
Priorities and approvals set
based on business goals
and policies; put into place
resolution procedures
SOA life-cycle mgt Avoid conflicts and drive
efficiencies
SOA and service life-cycle
mgt
Involve all stakeholders in
the life cycle in an integrated
fashion
Provide workflow-based
system
SOA life-cycle mgt, BPM Improve consistency and
compliance
Define processes to address
change mgt and versioning
of services
Automate service change
management practices;
support dependency analysis
SOA life-cycle mgt, ALM,
config mgt, SOA repository
Maintain compliance and
properly manage any
dependencies
Runtime practices and
policies
Nonintrusive technology
approach integrate into
existing procedures and
activities as much as
possible
Provide automated
operational infrastructure
integrated with common
policy implementation and
management tools
SOA mgt, SOA policy mgt,
ESB, and/or other policy
enforcement mechanisms
Provide more consistent and
comprehensive processing
across the environment
Notes:
This framework is meant to provide highlights of some of the most differentiating factors and activities that contribute to a successful enterprise SOA program. It is not
meant to be an extensive list of all activities involved in implementing SOA-based systems, nor is it meant to dive deep into facets of technology or architecture.
While certain relationships between success factors, activities, technologies, and benefits have been presented, they should not be considered mutually exclusive to those
particular associations, as many dimensions impact one another.
Some technologies listed in the framework may not explicitly be prefaced with the term "services" or "SOA" in the interest of readability; however, do assume specific SOA
and services capabilities exist.
Source: IDC, 2008

2008 IDC #214146 33





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