Framework for SOA services

Transcription

1 Advisory Services Business Systems Integration Framework for SOA services Service-oriented architecture can transform the IT landscape by increasing efficiencies and decreasing costs. But the architecture must leverage reusable services to be truly effective, and that requires a carefully implemented Centralized Services Framework as its foundation.

2 Table of contents The heart of the matter 2 SOA is now a mainstream strategy for improving IT performance, yet the architecture often does not live up to expectations. The reason? Many implementations are not built on a proven framework for reusable services. An in-depth discussion 4 A successful framework requires a fundamental shift in the way organizations think about integration. Simply put, the business process is no longer coupled with the technology that automates it. What this means for your business 9 To realize maximum gains from SOA, organizations must take extraordinary care to craft a Centralized Services Framework that fuses business knowledge with technical expertise.

3 The heart of the matter SOA is now a mainstream strategy for improving IT performance, yet the architecture often does not live up to expectations. The reason? Many implementations are not built on a proven framework for reusable services.

4 Despite a tentative economic recovery, organizations today remain under relentless pressure to curtail costs and streamline operations. Many have adopted service-oriented architecture (SOA) as a way to generate sweeping efficiencies and cost savings by replacing legacy applications with modular services that can be quickly implemented and reused. The promises of SOA are great, yet it doesn t always deliver. The reason is simple: Most organizations lack the methodology, process, and governance necessary to design, manage, and maximize reusable services. Blame it on the silos. In many enterprises, isolated technical teams build services for business processes that they do not understand from an end-to-end perspective. At the same time, business units create their own services in functional isolation, resulting in a torrent of point-to-point services that are not defined and not shared across the enterprise. It s a scenario that we have seen firsthand. PricewaterhouseCoopers recently stepped in to help a global pharmaceutical firm redress an integration SOA implementation that had become overly cumbersome. In just one example of what can go wrong, the company s business process for onboarding assigning new employees computers, network access rights, software, data access, and work groups had ballooned to 65 interfaces. In theory, an organization should employ a single composite service for onboarding supported by multiple coarse-grained services for specific onboarding needs, since the procedure is straightforward and should vary little among divisions. Yet this pharmaceutical firm used a point-to-point interface for every business unit. Not surprisingly, the IT team wasted a tremendous amount of time managing and maintaining these far-flung interfaces. By leveraging the principles of SOA, PricewaterhouseCoopers created a set of reusable services, one for each task, with service extensions for various end points that could be deployed for all divisions. That strategy reduced 65 point-to-point interfaces to a single enterprise-wide process comprising reusable services. Not only did this increase the efficiency of IT operations, it also yielded a radically simple integration platform that requires less maintenance and that can be swiftly modified to address evolving business needs. Correctly implementing reusable services requires a comprehensive framework for developing a centralized set of services. Creating this type of framework for integration and reuse of services is a multifaceted initiative that requires expertise in data modeling and a discipline in systems and process integration. It also demands a precise understanding of how to integrate services with leading business practices, as well as robust governance to ensure that the services are properly managed, maintained, and reused. This framework looks at the business value that services bring to an organization, which allows for the development of composite services that have discrete services (coarse-grained) tied to each composite service that makes up a business process. PricewaterhouseCoopers has developed a services framework built upon a three-tiered approach that focuses on the business processes while leveraging existing infrastructure and integration content. We believe this structured approach, along with strong governance, is the only way to create a SOA implementation that takes full advantage of reusable services. Framework for SOA services PricewaterhouseCoopers 3

5 An in-depth discussion A successful framework requires a fundamental shift in the way organizations think about integration. Simply put, the business process is no longer coupled with the technology that automates it.

6 There s no doubt about it: SOA has gone mainstream. Sixty-eight percent of enterprises in the United States and Europe say they are using the architecture or will use it by the end of 2010, according to Forrester Research. 1 Yet companies that have implemented SOA express a significant degree of dissatisfaction. The Forrester survey shows that 30 percent of respondents have seen little or no benefits and 18 percent are struggling to realize the expected gains. 2 The reason? We believe many companies do not reap the full potential of SOA because they implement the architecture and services without a well-defined framework coupled with builtin governance and an unwavering analysis of the business processes that drive the need for systems integration. It is critical that the framework include an effective governance program. This component is key because it can bring radical efficiencies to an organization, including reuse of services, enforcement of architectural standards, assurance that SOA efforts evolve as business needs demand, and creation of an appropriate funding model that can be used across the enterprise. (For an in-depth look at the benefits of SOA governance, see the PricewaterhouseCoopers paper SOA Governance: More than just registries and repositories.) 3 In addition to governance, the framework must ensure that organizations look at business processes in a fundamentally new light. An effective SOA approach regards business processes as a set of interdependent services, simple tasks that someone or something performs. In a retail operation, for instance, a typical service might be processing credit card payments from various sales channels. A business-focused SOA approach isolates the technology portion of the service connecting to and interacting with the credit card processor from the business portion and makes the technology available to all business processes, no matter where they exist in the enterprise. (To explore how to align business processes with SOA, see the PricewaterhouseCoopers paper Achieving business-driven SOA.) 4 A service framework with governance and a business-driven focus builds a solid foundation for leveraging the organization s existing tools to implement a SOA platform and services for effective creation, discovery, and reuse of services for individual business processes. Reuse is critical to a successful implementation of SOA, yet it is rarely given the attention it deserves. The complex process of building and reusing services is best achieved by a dedicated integration Center of Excellence (COE) team. This core team is charged with the governance, design, development, testing, and support of the service components. Achieving these goals requires that the integration COE work hand-in-hand with business-unit stakeholders to bridge the gap between business needs and SOA services. 1 Forrester Research, Insights for CIOs: SOA and Beyond, December Forrester Research, Insights for CIOs: SOA and Beyond, December SOA Governance: More than just registries and repositories, PricewaterhouseCoopers, 4 Achieving business-driven SOA, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Framework for SOA services PricewaterhouseCoopers 5

7 How a services framework can maximize SOA efficiency Many organizations are turning to SOA to help lower the cost of ownership, maximize IT efficiency, and plan for future growth. To achieve these goals, a services framework is essential. A services framework finely tuned to the business needs of a company enables SOA to boost IT efficiency by use and reuse of tools across interfaces and business functions. The process of reuse also decreases redundancy of functionality as services are consolidated and existing integration content and knowledge are optimized. At the same time, a services framework can help drive down the total cost of ownership. Initial costs for service delivery infrastructure are offset in the long run as services reuse is achieved and efficiencies enable the IT department to quickly achieve more on a leaner budget. An effective services framework demands an end-to-end analysis of each business process to achieve an actionable understanding of the company s value chain. Through this detailed analysis, the organization also gains crucial insight into its overall applications and technology platform, which enables it to develop and discover affordable and effective services. A framework also helps ensure that the design and configuration of services are standardized throughout the enterprise. This facilitates collaboration on IT projects and services across departments, and accelerates adoption rates and reuse of services. Standardized services can speed the turnaround time for new or updated applications that quickly evolving business needs demand. Finally, an established methodology lays the groundwork for efficient and informed IT growth strategies by enabling executives to forecast how the services landscape will evolve over the short and long term. Why companies fail to implement a services framework Implementing a services framework would seem to be a logical and obvious approach to managing and reusing SOA services. And it is. But companies face myriad obstacles when they attempt to tackle an initiative of this magnitude. Implementing a services framework is daunting for most organizations because they simply don t know how to approach SOA from a business-process perspective. That s not surprising, given that a business-process approach represents a fundamental departure from the traditional methods of designing IT services. And it s not a simple matter. Before a business process can be translated to a reusable service, organizations must meticulously analyze and model it as a generic process. Only then can the need be translated into services that can be reused across divergent business processes. At the same time, the IT organization must establish strong governance to ensure that the services are properly designed, maintained, and reused. Governance is the linchpin of an effective SOA implementation, yet it s also a practice that many organizations recklessly disregard. They do so at great risk, since enterprises that implement SOA without governance may suffer as services proliferate wildly without a formal service definition and reuse process. In the end, no one knows how many services are in place, where they are, or what they do. The result: services are not discovered and are not reused. Framework for SOA services PricewaterhouseCoopers 6

8 The complexity of integration can be formidable. That is why it is essential to approach SOA with the proper strategy, governance, and methodology. Service definition within a services framework can help minimize the complexities of integration by taking into account data incompatibility and integration challenges. More importantly, a strategic approach to SOA ensures that an organization has the appropriately skilled resources to make integration a successful undertaking. Another area of IT expertise in which many companies are lacking is the ability to create common data models with strong contract and policy definitions, which are essential to ensuring that services are reusable. Organizations typically take shortcuts in building the data model, failing to recognize that the services are, at their essence, nothing more than the sum of their generic information and data models. We also have found that business units within an organization may resist a standardized service approach because they believe their needs have unique requirements that cannot be addressed by generic services. This shortsighted approach does not take into account SOA s ability to employ extensions to services that make them reusable, yet unique, by division or geographic location. The right steps toward a Centralized Services Framework PricewaterhouseCoopers has developed a Centralized Services Framework (CSF) that is informed by our experience implementing services methodologies for a range of global businesses. Our CSF strategy centers on an end-to-end analysis of each business process, beginning with the business process and extending through the information model and data model. The framework also governs the implementation and use of coarse-grained services that can be choreographed to a composite service or process to achieve systems integration. As previously mentioned, services reuse is critical to the success of a SOA implementation, yet it is rarely given the attention it deserves. Our CSF provides robust guidelines to promote that services are reusable by focusing on governance to identify the best integration logic and streamline the IT processes and maintenance. When building a CSF, we focus on three key areas: the management team, the business process, and the integration platform. 1. The management team: The first step in developing a CSF is to appoint a centralized integration COE team to manage the services framework and serve as an enterprise-wide resource for all integration requirements, governance, and services. If the organization already has integration COE, it must build competency within the team to assist that data integration and governance models are understood, implemented, and faithfully followed. Before embarking on a full-fledged adoption of SOA, the integration COE must establish governance for services. The guidelines must precisely and succinctly define the building of services, including minimum criteria and guidelines for deviations. This governance includes the architecture, service definition, joint interface agreements, message specifications, and templates for design and capture of service metrics. Once implemented, the integration COE oversees the ongoing use and maintenance of services and policy management to help facilitate that services perform as expected. Framework for SOA services PricewaterhouseCoopers 7

9 2. The business process: It is imperative that the organization focus on the business process first, rather than on the technical requirements of services. We believe that a very precise understanding of the end-to-end business process is fundamental to creating a common information model. This understanding is achievable through appropriate process maturity. Only then can the organization identify the services it can use and reuse across multiple systems. At the same time, the organization must consider how the service or process touches data across multiple systems and how it traverses systems throughout the enterprise. (For an in-depth look at how to achieve process maturity, see the PricewaterhouseCoopers paper From the White Board to the Bottom Line: The case for pursuing process maturity through business process management.) 1 Once these factors have been determined, service design starts with standard requirements and adds extensions for discrete processes. In other words, if a company has developed a service for shipping products to one large retailer, it easily can create a second service that manages delivery to another retailer by simply adding service extensions to the original service. 3. The integration platform: The integration platform is the technology component upon which organizations build, model, and implement the data models, services, and extensions. Because SOA services stretch across the enterprise, it is essential that the integration platform accommodate the organization s enterprise-wide business processes. PricewaterhouseCoopers has delivered successful Centralized Services Frameworks on a variety of integration platforms, including SAP NetWeaver, Oracle SOA Suite, IBM WebSphere, and Progress Sonic. Regardless of vendor choice, an integration platform must include certain capabilities to achieve a successful SOA implementation. First, the platform must provide the ability to create a de-coupled architecture to help facilitate that discrete business functionalities stay within their respective domains and are shared through SOA. The platform also must be capable of serving as a central repository for all enterprise services and business processes. Finally, the platform must include accelerators for integrating applications from one or multiple systems. Beyond these core capabilities, PricewaterhouseCoopers has created a set of tools to accelerate business processes and IT integration and maintenance. These industryindependent accelerators, which were honed from our years of experience in SOA-based enterprise integration, include: A service and data-movement registry that helps to ensure services are easy to discover and reuse. The central registry provides an end-to-end view of existing services and their data definitions and information models. A design template that captures service implementation details at a very granular level, while ensuring that technical and information redundancy is not introduced in the design. An accelerator tool that facilitates deployment and validation of SOA services across multiple environments, including development, quality assurance, training, and production. A metrics tool that helps organizations approach and measure integration requirements from a business perspective by clearly outlining the underlying business processes. This clarity in requirements along with knowledge of end-to-end processes can help organizations achieve high reusability of existing services, which can result in lower costs and a faster implementation. 1 From the White Board to the Bottom Line: The case for pursuing process maturity through business process management. PricewaterhouseCooopers, Framework for SOA services PricewaterhouseCoopers 8

10 What this means for your business To realize maximum gains from SOA, organizations must take extraordinary care to craft a Centralized Services Framework that fuses business knowledge with technical expertise.

11 For many organizations, SOA has become the go-to strategy for maximizing IT efficiencies and cutting costs. But when it comes to implementing a services framework for SOA, many companies simply don t know how or where to start. And given the complexity of the initiative, that s not surprising. We believe that companies must carefully construct a SOA implementation on a strong foundation with built-in governance and a strategy that regards integration as an end-to-end business process. We call that a Centralized Services Framework (CSF). PricewaterhouseCoopers has pioneered a CSF that fuses the functional team s business knowledge with integration Center of Excellence (COE) technical experience. Our integration COE within the Business System Integration practice has successfully designed and modeled services for a variety of global businesses based on a CSF. Over the years, we have refined this proven methodology to deliver forward-thinking design and integration, and we have developed unique processes and tools that help facilitate a successful enterprise-wide integration using reusable services. Experience has taught us that it s essential to tailor the CSF to a company s unique business environment and needs. So if your organization is implementing SOA for the first time or adjusting the structure of an existing system for enterprise integration, we can help you make the most of SOA. Framework for SOA services PricewaterhouseCoopers 10

12 pwc.com Contacts To have a deeper conversation on the industry or on any of the topics mentioned, please contact: Hemant Ramachandra Managing Director, Business Systems Integration (973) hemant.g.ramachandra@us.pwc.com Munawar Lakdawala Director, Business Systems Integration (678) munawar.s.lakdawala@us.pwc.com Nilkanth Kakadiya Manager, Business Systems Integration (317) nilkanth.kakadiya@us.pwc.com 2010 PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP. All rights reserved. "PricewaterhouseCoopers" refers to PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, a Delaware limited liability. partnership, or, as the context requires, the PricewaterhouseCoopers global network or other member firms of the network, each of which is a separate and independent legal entity. This document is for general information purposes only, and should not be used as a substitute for consultation with professional advisors.