IDC: Evolving Applications for SOA with Genero WHITE PAPER ABSTRACT

By Sandra Rodgers, Analyst IDC

ABSTRACTING COMPLEX IT

Today’s organizations need to make the most of their IT resources. But if applications are too closely designed to specific operating systems, deployment environments, databases, user interfaces, and client devices, the value and flexibility of those solutions can be limited. Enterprises have struggled for years to connect systems, especially when they are of different makes, and even generations, of technology. Many organizations have attempted to rein in these efforts through various means, often resorting to point-to-point integration approaches or consolidation efforts. Whether to leverage and extend existing systems, or perhaps port applications for use on varied environments, the need to create an architecture and foster development in a uniform way that can address many alternative system configurations is certainly a more desirable tack.

Market interest, industry standards, and technology innovations are advancing to support architectures that promote greater levels of abstraction, allowing for components of systems to be created and exist independently. If implemented appropriately, such design approaches and assets can contribute to greater efficiencies and create systems that more readily adapt to change.

Service Oriented Architectures & Web Services

To address key IT goals of standardization, interoperability, and reusability to help address business needs including time-to-market pressures, competitive differentiation, compliance, and cost control, enterprises of all size classes and industries are embracing the concepts of system and application virtualization and dynamic connectivity. These desires converge with the overwhelming market trend to leverage centralized, shared IT resources supplied by both internal and external parties. To enable this, it is becoming more pertinent to utilize system environments and industry-standard protocols and allow for greater connectivity. As testimony to this trend, service oriented architecture (SOA) and Web services continue to amass tremendous market interest and expanding levels of adoption.