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SOA client reference submissions: Guidelines and examples
These guidelines and examples can help you complete your SOA client reference submission.
An SOA implementation would include at least one of these goals:
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Treats existing or new software assets as services or business tasks. The business tasks are supported by self-contained software components that perform the specified business task and are independent of the applications and computing platforms on which they run.
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Uses standards to clearly define the interfaces between services.
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Implements an SOA governance framework to bring order to such things as service ownership, funding, availability, location, interdependency between services, and service lifecycle management.
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Revitalizes the infrastructure to manage SOA services.
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Implements a business dashboard using SOA.
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Implements a registry or repository.
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Implements an SOA Healthcheck.
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Implements an SOA-based framework.
Note: SOA is not limited to Web services nor does Web services imply SOA.
SOA is not:
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A particular product
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A brand
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Just a services engagement
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An appliance
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An organization
Some generic examples of SOA implementations include projects:
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With initial business modeling, such as modeling using WebSphere Business Modeler or from a component business modeling engagement.
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With a goal to repurpose existing IT assets as services that can be reused more broadly within or beyond the business.
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With a business process management goal and the business processes are composed of services.
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With a business driven development goal and this development leads to the creation of services as defined above that can be repurposed for reuse.
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With an IT service management goal and this management is being applied to the business' services as opposed to traditional networks or applications.
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With a goal of providing information as a service to the rest of the IT infrastructure.
The client reference submission form consists of a series of questions, four of which require detailed responses.
This section can help you prepare complete answers to these four key questions.
Information requested:
Provide an overview of the client's company, including company URL, products and services offered by the company, number of employees, geographic locations of its facilities, and so on. You can copy and paste this information from the company's Web site.
Response to include:
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Where are the client company's headquarters and regional locations?
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When was it founded?
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What is its revenue for publicly held companies?
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Does it have a worldwide or geographical focus?
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How many employees does it have?
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What does it sell?
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What is its primary business?
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What is the client's URL?
Example response:
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SampleCo, headquartered in North Carolina, with an international presence in Europe and China, provides property and casualty insurance. Founded in YYYY and with over xxxx employees, SampleCo had over $MM in revenue in 2007. As a leader in the insurance market, SampleCo has seen double-digit growth and is considered a leader in property and casualty insurance.
Company URL: http://www.sampleco.com
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Information requested:
Describe in detail the business challenge or opportunity your client was trying to address or the specific goals your client was trying to achieve.
Response to include:
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Are there any specific market conditions that are affecting the client's business?
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Is there new competition developing?
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Does the client have easy access to information for their employees or customers?
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Is the client looking to update their business processes?
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Does the client need to respond to market conditions quicker?
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Is the client looking to reduce costs or become more efficient?
Example response:
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SampleCo's core business applications ran on legacy systems which were complex and difficult to change due to point-to-point connections which were preventing them from offering new services quickly to their customers to stay competitive and was preventing employees from having a single view of business data across applications.
To improve access and provide better customer response time, SampleCo launched a project to investigate alternatives to enable flexibility and to implement a pilot project enabling customers to place their orders online.
Their goal of this project was to speed customer responsiveness and offer new services to meet market demands.
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Information requested:
Describe in detail the solution implemented for this client, including the IBM software products with versions numbers and how your solution integrated with these products.
Response to include:
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How was an SOA approach used?
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What was the Business Partner's solution?
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What IBM software products and versions were incorporated into the client's solution?
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How did the Business Partner's solution leverage the IBM software products?
Example response:
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To address its needs, SampleCo engaged an IBM Business Partner, SampleBP, to help deploy a solution that involved leveraging an SOA approach. SampleBP provided a front end portal that connected to the back end by service-enabling existing assets and using WebSphere Portal to create portlets as services.
Based on WebSphere Application Server V6 platform and WebSphere Portal V6, the SampleBP solution enabled SampleCo to improve the customer experience by reusing the existing legacy employee order entry system and by enabling customers to enter their own orders online through the new portal.
This pilot project demonstrated how SOA and WebSphere Portal increased agility, as the solution was delivered in 2 months, and increased flexibility by reusing legacy applications. With an SOA vision in place, SampleCo is able to leverage this pilot portal solution with other applications as part of a broader flexibility initiative since the portlets are exposed as services that can be used in future projects.
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Information requested:
Provide a minimum of two to four benefits and quantify, if possible.
Response to include:
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What benefits did the client get?
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Was there a cost saving? How much?
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Did the solution solve the client's concerns as described earlier? How?
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Was the Business Partner able to deliver the SOA solution in a shorter time than previous non-SOA projects?
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Are there any additional SOA projects planned?
Example response:
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SampleCo was able to extend their legacy system without replacing it and saved $800K in pilot project development costs over alternative solutions. The speed to market for the pilot project was reduced by 50% as the project was delivered in two months as opposed to four months for the best alternative solution.
Because an SOA approach was used to implement this solution, it can be used in future modernization efforts for their legacy system as they continue on their SOA journey and service enable more existing assets.
Furthermore, SampleCo reports a savings in maintenance and upgrade costs of $xx/year and improved efficiency of its development staff by y% for the pilot project and anticipate $zz/year in reduction of future development costs by reusing existing assets.
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