InfoQ

News

InfoQ Interview: Using Agile for SOA Implementation

Posted by Deborah Hartmann on Dec 04, 2006 05:24 AM

Community
Agile,
SOA
Topics
Agile Techniques ,
Stories & Case Studies
Tags
Business/IT Alignment ,
Conferences ,
Interviews ,
Digital Focus ,
Business Architecture
This autumn, Digital Focus documented their experience using Agile to tackle SOA for Federal Home Loan Banks. The incremental approach included adopting an SOA platform that could grow as the SOA application portfolio grew, and getting frequent feedback from customers and developers.  InfoQ interviewed both the the author of the Digital Focus experience report, and the project's client.

 Current SOA processes and guidance generally encourage a phase-based approach to SOA implementation, fully understanding the problem and defining the solution before implementation begins.  Digital Focus, an east-coast firm specializing in Agile software development and integration, is convinced that Agile development practices are equally suited to implementing SOA.  In August, Digital Focus published an experience report, "SOA, Meet Agile. Adopting SOA with Agile Teams" describing how SOA was successfully deployed using agile methods at Federal Home Loan Banks' Office of Finance (FHLB-OF).

In the following article, InfoQ editor Deborah Hartmann interviewed two people close to the project, to understand how it came about and how it worked out.  First, Geoff Henton, CIO of FHLB-OF answered some general questions about using Agile practices on this SOA development effort, an approach they had formerly used only on software projects.  Then Tom Stiehm, co-author of the report, filled us in on how the project unfolded.

Related Sponsor

VersionOne is recognized by Agile practitioners as the leader in Agile project management tools. Companies such as Adobe, BBC, CNN, Dow, HP, IBM, Sony and 3M have turned to VersionOne to help deliver greater value to their customers.

1 comment

Watch Thread Reply

Very Interesting! by Brian Di Croce Posted Apr 14, 2007 9:41 PM

  1. Back to top

    Very Interesting!

    Apr 14, 2007 9:41 PM by Brian Di Croce

    Our client wanted an approach that could be applied to any project they have for the next ten years so the practices in the approach are solid software engineering practices that any IT shop could follow and get benefit from.
    I can't wait to read your next interview about the status of this approach...even though I'll have to wait until 2017 ;) Thanks to the people at Digital Focus for taking time to write the whitepaper/article about their approach; it's very much appreciated. Cheers, Brian

    Reply

Educational Content

Bindings, Platforms, and Innovation

This presentation focuses on the Internet and separating myth from fact, history from the future, and the mundane from the imaginative. Bob Frankston presents a vision of what could and should be.

  •  Jul 02, 2009,
  •  

Orchestrating Long Running Activities with JBoss / JBPM

This article explores the use of JBoss and jBPM to implement design solutions that effectively address the issue of orchestrating long running activities.

  •  Jul 01, 2009,
  •  

Neo4j - The Benefits of Graph Databases

This presentation covers the use of graph databases as an optimal solution for data that is difficult to fit in static tables, rapidly evolving data or data that has a lot of optional attributes.

Realistic about Risk: Software development with Real Options

This session introduces Real Options and shows how it can help in running your project. Real Options is a decision-making process that can be used to manage risk.

  •  Jun 30, 2009,
  •  

Communication Flexibility Using Bindings

This article discusses the use of bindings on services and references (including the instance of non-configured bindings) as the means to implement SCA communications in a Web and SOA environment.

  •  Jun 30, 2009,
  •  

Writing DSLs in Groovy

After a short introduction to DSLs, Scott Davis plays with the keyboard showing how to approach the creation of a DSL by typing working snippets of Groovy code that get executed.

Scaling Agile with C/ALM (Collaborative Application Lifecycle Management)

IBM Rational and InfoQ present, Scaling Agile with C/ALM, an eBook showing organizations how to become “finely tuned software delivery machines” by enabling team integration and scaling.

Concurrent Programming with Microsoft F#

Amanda Laucher presents a real life enterprise application written in F#. She shows actual code snippets, explaining design decisions and suggesting how to use some of the F# constructs.