Is SOA soon to be a commodity?

Submitted by Ivo Totev. Business Analysts

SOA is about to reach a new level of maturity, according to Jason Bloomberg, IT analyst at Zapthink. He predicts that by the end of this decade, SOA best practices will be widely spread and accepted, making service orientation a commodity.

As SOA is a multi-layered architecture, the answer to the question above (Is SOA soon to be a commodity?) depends on which level is being observed at that particular moment.

The technological foundations of an SOA - like the basic standards, middleware and architectural service design models - have already reached a considerable degree of maturity. This is why topics like these will most likely play only a minor role in any discussions on SOA.

The higher levels of service-oriented architecture however are generating a whole range of new topics that are only now just beginning to find their way into companies. These topics not only address the technical aspects, but also the organisational structures of companies. Examples of these topics range from SOA governance to the successful interaction between SOA and BPM. In this case we are observing a lot of innovation and movement in the market. The idea has been clearly drafted, now it is time for vendors and customers to make it reality.

And then there are the future-oriented topics that once again could have far-reaching effects on the development of SOA. One of these topics, for example, is complex event processing. . Another is Web 2.0, will it remain more a collaborative and multi-media topic or are its ideas and concepts going to bring about a sea change in our approach to IT systems?

I would like to conclude by saying that the technological foundations of SOA are soon to become a commodity. With this change, SOA will not only be a concept for the "early adopters." We will see more conservatively motivated customers also embrace SOA strategies. I am sure however that we are going to see many more innovative topics over the next few years that are going to ensure that the field of SOA and its development remains exciting.