Welcome! This is the first Plutonic Zoo "News from the Zooz" eNewsletter that we will send out on a regular basis.

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Our enewsletters will share with you in a concise Plutonic way a perspective on a topical business subject we are currently engaged in. This time it is Service Oriented Architecture (SOA). In our eNewsletters we also introduce some of our initiatives for your comments and suggestions, and we give you access to Plutonic Zoo research material on the subject.

The headings for our three eNewsletter sections are Plutonic Zoo's core values: Perceptive, Resourceful and Impartial.

Happy reading!

Ken Methven - Neville Bradbury - Victor Konijn
The Plutonic Zoo Management Team

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News from the Zooz - Services Oriented Architecture (SOA) - What is it all about?

Perceptive - (Plutonic Zoo shares a perspective on a topical subject)

Services Oriented Business - Letting the dog wag its own tail.
IT departments have developed and acquired a myriad of applications which reflect individual approaches that were the best at that time, but in current circumstances increasingly cannot meet the needs of business quickly enough because of their lack of integration and inconsistencies. The accelerating change in governance requirements, regulatory compliance and market conditions require business to re-examine their capabilities and how best to obtain returns from their existing IT assets.

One of the issues is to ensure the highest level of alignment between business and IT, and for both groups to recognise each other’s contributions and the need to work together to deliver more agile systems. IT has too frequently been accused of being the 'tail wagging the dog' and having too much control over the systems that business depends on. IT needs to strive to put control of the business process into the business users' hands.

Services are the key. The 'silo' problem is fast disappearing as business and IT evolve towards a services oriented approach. Business functionality is encapsulated and componentised to the point where orchestrating and integrating the services into a broader business processing fabric becomes a business oriented activity.

In the SOA approach, the skills of IT are focused on creating robust, adaptable and reuseable services within an overall business framework. The delivery of reusable services within a framework yields building blocks that the business can use and control. They can dynamically adapt how these services can be used without further assistance from IT once they have been defined and the layers implemented.

SOA delivers a level of agility that enables businesses capable of outthinking their competitors to be unhindered by a tail that wants to wag the dog.

Resourceful - (interactive section on Plutonic Zoo suggestions)

• Plutonic Zoo is planning a half day workshop on "SOA - making it work" later this year.
  In this workshop we will share practical information and considerations to decide if and how SOA can work for your organisation. Participants will get a chance to shape the workshop through submission of specific questions. If you are interested to stay informed on further details about this workshop as and when it comes available, or if you already have specific questions you want us to address, please let us know and we will add you to the distribution list of workshop news. Click here.
• For future eNewsletters we are considering including topics such as
  • Compliance and ICT Governance
  • Setting up a Project Management Office (PMO)
  • Legacy integration
  • Selecting application software products
  • Application change management
  Please let us know your priority interest, or if you have other subjects you would like us to address in a News from the Zooz eNewsletter, please click here.
• For any other feedback or question for Plutonic Zoo, please click here - Thank you.

Impartial - (Links to vendor and research community views for comparison)

Defined: What is Service-Oriented Architecture?, SoftTouch IT

Pitfalls : Take a look at what makes a good SOA pilot, and avoid the pitfalls., Zapthink

Direction: SOA retrospective and predictions, ZapThink

Strategy: SOA and its role in your connected systems strategy, Microsoft

Case Study: Standard Life’s implementation of an SOA is a sound investment., IBM

Product: Connect Integrate and Collaborate using SOA, Oracle

Research: SOA Mainstream Straight Ahead, Gartner

Practical: Clear perspective on the suitability of SOA , Plutonic Zoo

Plutonic: SOA Testimonial for Plutonic Zoo, Ecowise Environmental

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