To help clients develop business models that facilitate better decision-making with real-time business information, IBM has identified five entry points: people, processes, information, connectivity and re-use-to provide customers with a systematic approach to starting SOA projects.

According to Microsoft's Woo, traditional concerns such as working with stored data and allowing access through a web browser are still important, but are no longer enough. "Modern applications also present a range of new challenges," said Woo. "Organizations are increasingly taking a process-oriented view of what they do. Since most applications automate some part of a business process, it can be useful to make the steps in this process explicit in the code. An effective way to do this is by using workflow technology, an approach that requires support for workflow-based applications."

In this approach, applications communicate with other applications both inside and outside the organization. Thus, these modern applications must fit into a SOA, exposing their functionality as interoperable services accessible by other software (a view supported by BEA's Ly). Achieving these goals requires support for service-oriented applications.

"Whether organizations embrace SOA or not, they will continue to look at ways to integrate their IT more effectively with their business goals and in the process also focus on dissolving IT complexities," said Springboard's Pandey. "We expect SOA to steadily spread its influence throughout Asian enterprises in 2007 and, in the process, fundamentally alter the way IT systems are operated and managed."

Model offers measure for SOA success