The Hindu Business Line : A different approach

"Both enterprise and independent software vendor segments are benefiting from services-oriented architecture. We are seeing interest from telecom, finance, insurance, manufacturing, energy and utilities, as well as ISV segments."

This is the way to go. - Dilip Dhanuka

In today's business environment, companies need to stay agile even as they adapt to the ever-changing dynamics of the market.

In tune with this need, software development too is adopting new approaches. Dilip Dhanuka, Vice-President, Products and Technology Group, Patni, talks of how one such approach, services-oriented architecture, (SOA) can help enterprises get more out of their existing technology assets while staying nimble in terms of responsiveness. Excerpts from a chat with eWorld:

Services-Oriented Architecture is being talked about as the next big wave in the technology space. Where are we in terms of market size and potential?

Today, organisations are keeping up with a changing business and technology scenario.

They are incorporating changes mandated by regulatory compliances and expanding due to mergers and acquisitions. They are extending their boundaries to include partners, suppliers and customers. They are collaborating and trading information in real time to realise mutual and customer benefits. As a result, they are often struggling to get their business processes and applications quickly adjusted to these changes and to contain costs due to the changes.

To stay competitive, these organisations need provisions for easy introduction of new business processes and application resources. They need facilities for streamlining information flow across organisations' divisions, and their IT applications to be in an integration-ready format.

Services-oriented architecture provides an effective means to address these requirements.

Gartner analysts predict that by 2008 60 per cent of enterprises will use this approach as their guiding principle when creating applications and processes.

IDC forecasts that worldwide spending on services-oriented architecture-based external services will reach $8.6 billion in 2006, experiencing a 138 per cent increase from $3.6 billion in 2005.

IDC also projects that by 2010, global spending here will reach $33.8 billion.

How do you see this helping enterprises add value to their technology infrastructure?

A complete adoption of this approach is possible only if organisations start looking at an enterprise architecture that is aligned with business architecture and is able to take care of changes.

Currently, enterprises spend close to 70 per cent of the IT budget just in maintenance. A large amount of that can be released if the portfolio gets rationalised or better used.

A scalable and future-proof architecture will also optimise IT spend in all new projects. And we have not even considered the business benefits of having an IT Architecture that is aligned with Business Architecture.

The flexibility this approach brings must be one major reason to take to it.

It is one of the major reasons. But the flexibility has to be seen with regard to aligning the enterprise and business requirements.

Flexibility is the ability to map IT on a continuous basis to the changing business need, without disrupting or causing major unplanned expenditure.

How is Patni addressing this market and which are the verticals going for this approach? Services-oriented architecture is a software paradigm for modelling reusable business or technology services. Its applicability is not restricted to specific industry segments.

A variety of capabilities can be abstracted from it and applications and product components within and across an organisation's firewall can interoperate using it.

As a result, both enterprise and ISV (independent software vendor) segments are benefiting from this approach.

We are seeing interest from telecom, finance, insurance, manufacturing, energy and utilities, as well as ISV segments. Patni itself has found it beneficial to use services-oriented architecture for integrating its applications.

This offers benefits such as business agility, as changes in business requirements can be dynamically and quickly incorporated.

Connected processes and applications can be better handled. It also provides for better visibility and manageability of processes for decision-making.

It cuts time to market and offers the ability to quickly launch services over the integrated backbone. The reusable software helps in lowering costs of maintenance and management.

All this calls for training of staff. both in terms of development and monitoring tools. Chief Information Officers will need expert advice to develop this programme so as to get the most out of it.

vrishi@thehindu.co.in