One way to increase flexibility and shorten response time is to implement a service-oriented architecture (SOA) environment, which can play a key role in transforming a company's IT department into a catalyst for growth and innovation.
By bringing business and IT into tighter alignment, service oriented architecture (SOA) creates enduring impact on the organizations that use it. Companies are now better able to embrace business models that are based on sensing and rapidly responding to market conditions, and to radically reduce time and effort between business intent and IT execution.
Savvy enterprises are using SOA as a means to make businesses more nimble, serve their customers better, leverage existing IT investments and capture new revenue streams.
Demand for SOA skills escalates
Yet companies face a shortage of qualified IT workers with flexible skills who can readily adapt and respond to ever-changing IT demands. As the demand for SOA escalates, it can be daunting to companies looking to hire experienced IT practitioners with SOA skills. Many IT workers today do not have experience with SOAP, XSD, WSDLs, XQuery or XSLT. This skills gap can impede and delay deployments among all but the most aggressively forward businesses. Often, the speed with which companies deploy SOA, and how far their SOA initiatives reach across their organizations depends heavily on the available SOA skills.
Companies need to invest in SOA skills
In the short term, many organizations are turning to third parties to help them plan and implement their SOA initiatives to get around the current skills gap. In particular, the pressing need for enterprise architects is resulting in a shortage of qualified professionals to lead successful SOA implementations. In the long term, in order for SOA to flourish and have a profound, sustainable impact on the business, companies must invest in training - especially for developers and architects.
In a recent IBM survey, 56% of respondents stated that lack of SOA skills were the No. 1 inhibitor to SOA Adoption.
SOA Training and education
IBM Training is primed to bring you up to speed on how SOA can transform your IT environment into a strategic asset with a full lineup of new and top-rated SOA course offerings. New courses for this fall include Designing SOA Solutions using IBM SOA Foundation (SOA59), Developing Applications with a Service-Oriented Architecture (SW519) and Technologies and Standards for Service-Oriented Architecture Project Implementation (VW005). Not sure what you need? IBM's SOA Training Paths page can help you plan your roadmap to success, culminating with certification as an SOA solutions administrator.
As the “early adopter” phase of SOA nears the end, companies of all sizes are beginning to implement SOA projects. Quickly building skills is a requirement to keep pace with the competition. To gain traction today, companies can partner with experts to lay the foundation and implement their projects now. At the same time, they must invest in education and skills development, to close the SOA knowledge gap – starting today.
To learn more about:
SOA Education visit: Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) Education
SOA visit: ibm.com/soa
Related links:
Demand for Business: Tech Integrators Causing SOA Job Surge
