Web Services Development, North America (Executive Summary) Executive Summary

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1 Web Services Development, North America (Executive Summary) Executive Summary Publication Date: 3 July 2003

2 Authors Nicole S. Latimer Colleen Graham Joanne M. Correia Norma Schroder This document has been published to the following Marketplace codes: SOFT-WW-EX-0104 For More Information... In North America and Latin America: In Europe, the Middle East and Africa: In Asia/Pacific: In Japan: Worldwide via gartner.com: Entire contents 2003 Gartner, Inc. and/or its Affiliates. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction of this publication in any form without prior written permission is forbidden. The information contained herein has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable. Gartner disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information. Gartner shall have no liability for errors, omissions or inadequacies in the information contained herein or for interpretations thereof. The reader assumes sole responsibility for the selection of these materials to achieve its intended results. The opinions expressed herein are subject to change without notice

3 Web Services Development, North America (Executive Summary) Web Services Standards Usage in Software Projects Study Objectives Related Documents Survey Methodology Considerable hype and interest surrounds Web services, as organizations have added Web services standards projects to their list of application development and integration priorities. Gartner Dataquest conducted a survey to determine user wants and needs and their current and future use of Web services standards during the next 12 to 24 months. The survey focused on organizations that are either developing applications using Web services technologies or are planning to develop them in the next two years. This survey looked at in-house and third-party service provider-based application development. The goal was to better understand the perception of Web services standards in development and integration projects, and the methods and means that organizations use to plan, budget and integrate them with established business applications. The Gartner Dataquest study examines end-user data gathered in February 2003 to identify and analyze trends involving current and future Web services development projects during the next 12 to 24 months. A separate Web services survey was conducted in February 2003, and the results can be found in "Systems Integration User Survey Shows Web Services' Popularity and Misconceptions," ITES-WW-UW This document provides insight into organizations' use of Web services in projects involving consultants and systems integrator resources. In January and February 2003, Griggs-Anderson conducted a multiple-choice Web survey on behalf of Gartner Dataquest. This survey was designed to better understand the implementation of Web services applications and Web services development projects, in particular as it impacted technology product and services purchasing intentions. For the purpose of this survey, Gartner Dataquest defined Web services as software, a custom end-to-end application that interoperates with other commercial and custom software through a family of XML interfaces (such as SOAP, UDDI, WDSL) to perform useful business functions. Key Findings Thekeyfindingsareasfollows: In the vast majority of respondent organizations, the IT manager/director of management information system (MIS) drove the project in all stages of rollout. However, in approximately 18 percent of organizations surveyed, primary responsibility for most stages of the project was taken by a committee representing both IT and business concerns. Forty-eight percent of respondents indicated that the U.S. economic slowdown has led them to reduce spending on Web services development, but they still will continue the project. However, nearly one-third of respondents indicated that the U.S. economic slowdown has had no impact on their organizations' budgeted investment in Web services application development projects Gartner, Inc. and/or its Affiliates. All Rights Reserved. 1

4 Web Services Development, North America (Executive Summary) Recommendations Fifty-four percent of respondents noted they used/plan to use (over the next 12 months) Web services to integrate applications both within the organization (interenterprise) as well as with partners or customers (intraenterprise). During this same time frame, 39 percent used/plan to use Web services only within their organization. When asked what the scope of the organization's strategy was over the next 24 months, respondents using/ planning to use Web services both intra- and interenterprise jumped to 65 percent, whereas respondents limiting Web services projects to only within the enterprise dropped to 23 percent. The majority of respondents indicated that integration with internal applications and processes was a key function of their project(s). Second only to integration, security was a key function that was being implemented/ included with the Web services project. Seventy-five percent of respondents involved in Web services development projects were using or planning to use XML; Java Server Pages (JSP)/ Servlets ran a close second with 62 percent. However, only 35 percent of users were using or planning to use SOAP. According to the pure technical definition of Web services, the majority of the users are not actually using Web services. For the purpose of this study, Gartner Dataquest defined Web services as follows: Software, a custom end-to-end application that interoperates with other commercial and custom software through a family of XML interfaces (such as SOAP, UDDI, WDSL) to perform useful business functions. While use of all of these interfaces is not required to meet this definition, one of them must be used, although the use of SOAP requires XML. Respondentswereusingorplanningtousemorethan90percentofthetime a database or application server to build or integrate in the Web services project. Management tools for the ongoing monitoring of deployed code, and testing and configuration tools for developed code rated more than 40 percent. Twenty-three percent of the time, respondents were planning to use an integration broker to integrate applications internally and externally in their Webservicesproject.WebMethodswasthemostcommonbrandfollowed by IBM and SeeBeyond currently, with IBM and Microsoft planned for future projects. Gartner Dataquest predicts that by 2007, the term Web services will be replaced by an overall focus on service-oriented architectures (SOAs). The leading systems integrators (SIs) and software vendors for SOA will be less renowned for their technology expertise but will be known for their ability to align business and IT. They will have extensive business process and vertical industry knowledge necessary for shifting the design center for integration to the business process vs. applications. Additionally, the leading companies will have strong capabilities in IT governance. The shift toward SOA will require virtual or actual centralization of many architectural, business process and data standardization decisions. Software vendors and SIs will build and offer service components and frameworks, and both will compete for the "services assembly business," traditionally the purview of the SIs Gartner, Inc. and/or its Affiliates. All Rights Reserved. 3 July 2003

5 Web Services Development, North America (Executive Summary) 3 Gartner Dataquest makes the following recommendations regarding Web services to software vendors and SIs: Provide a clear, differentiated story about how Web services will benefit customers and how Web services will evolve to transform customers' businesses. Invest in intellectual property, such as methods and frameworks and participation in standards bodies. Create full life cycle methodologies that accommodate systematic and iterative approaches and that promote the reuse of components. Build reusable solutions, particularly those focused on business processes in specific vertical industries. Help customers deal with IT governance issues. Create strong alliances with other providers to extend your knowledge and reach. For the full report, see " Web Services Development, North America," SWSI-WW-UW Gartner, Inc. and/or its Affiliates. All Rights Reserved. 3 July 2003