Exercise 16: System Integration

What to do:

The final topic is for group reflective study using the wiki too in CSU Interact and a way for you to add a final reflective comment on systems integration and making your closing remarks to our Developer’s blog.

1. Choose ONE of the four ways to manage and develop integrated systems as listed below;

I would choose service-oriented architectures (SOA) to manage and develop integrated systems as it is more agile and responsive to business’s changing requirements. It enables efficiency through interactions and collaboration using portals.

2. Summarize your understanding and describe its relevance (250 words max) in either your study at university or in your work environment;

SOA is best approached as individual projects - each of which bring your business greater flexibility and service orientation. Successful SOA adoption is done incrementally stressing the importance of starting small, and scaling appropriately.

To move your organization toward greater service orientation, you need to take a balanced approach to building versus buying. To create the infrastructure for an SOA, you'll need the right commercial off-the-shelf software that complements (rather than replaces) your existing IT infrastructure. This is a “buy” statement. On the “build” side, you may also choose to access know-how and hands-on involvement to use these software products effectively and get the most out of them. This infrastructure and the associated tools can help you create the business services that run on your SOA. Again, there is some “building” associated with this. So the real answer is that you need a certain measure of both building and buying.


SOA helps create greater alignment between IT and line of business while generating more flexibility - IT flexibility to support greater business flexibility. Your business processes are changing faster and faster and global competition requires the flexibility that SOA can provide. SOA can help you get better reuse out of your existing IT investments as well as the new services you're developing today. SOA makes integration of your IT investments easier by making use of well-defined interfaces between services. SOA also provides an architectural model for integrating business partners’, customers’ and suppliers’ services into an enterprise’s business processes. This reduces cost and improves customer satisfaction.


3. Edit TWO similar versions (include bibliography) of that summary to CSU Interact:
a.) post version A as a wiki page contribution;

b.) add version B as a final entry to close your developer’s blog

SOA is best approached as individual projects - each of which bring your business greater flexibility and service orientation. Successful SOA adoption is done incrementally stressing the importance of starting small, and scaling appropriately.

To move your organization toward greater service orientation, you need to take a balanced approach to building versus buying. To create the infrastructure for an SOA, you'll need the right commercial off-the-shelf software that complements (rather than replaces) your existing IT infrastructure. This is a “buy” statement. On the “build” side, you may also choose to access know-how and hands-on involvement to use these software products effectively and get the most out of them. This infrastructure and the associated tools can help you create the business services that run on your SOA. Again, there is some “building” associated with this. So the real answer is that you need a certain measure of both building and buying.


SOA helps create greater alignment between IT and line of business while generating more flexibility - IT flexibility to support greater business flexibility. Your business processes are changing faster and faster and global competition requires the flexibility that SOA can provide. SOA can help you get better reuse out of your existing IT investments as well as the new services you're developing today. SOA makes integration of your IT investments easier by making use of well-defined interfaces between services. SOA also provides an architectural model for integrating business partners’, customers’ and suppliers’ services into an enterprise’s business processes. This reduces cost and improves customer satisfaction.




Reference

IBM. (2010). Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) Entry Points. Retrieved at 18, 2010, from http://www-01.ibm.com/software/solutions/soa/entrypoints/information.html?S_TACT=&S_CMP=

IBM. (2010). Service Oriented Architecture – SOA. Retrieved at 18, 2010, from http://www-01.ibm.com/software/solutions/soa/faqs.html#4