Zapped

Last week, I was in a ZapThink Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) Bootcamp. It was a descent class since they derive their material from actual SOA implementations in large corporations. They presented high level principals and "gotchas" but I felt it lacked something but I cannot tell what. I thought the ITIL v3 Foundations course was more intense and it actually presented some excellent concepts. I highly recommend taking ITIL v3 Foundations course and the ZapThink bootcamp does a good job of re-enforcing overall same concepts which are:

• How does IT solve a business problem? This is key since vendors and developers tend to buy the tool or solution and then retrofit it to a business problem. I have been involved in couple of projects which spelled D-O-O-M-E-D after they were cancelled.
• Capture Business Processes - This is an other key since requirements are derived by analysts which inturn are passed down to the architects and engineers. Architects and Engineers design solutions to the requirements. If they had an insight into the business processes, the solutions could be better and cheaper.
• Business Agility - Flexible IT systems provide businesses more flexibility to be agile. Services support this paradigm however defined Configuration Management processes are key as well.
• Architecture - Enteprise, Data, Process, and Technical Architectures are key since they provide a defined approach in designing a system or an enterprise. No more Ad-hoc development projects. As a developer and an as an architect, this is key since developers love to know their constraints. We, as developers, have been burnt by poorly written code or no documentation.

Overall good IT architecture with SOA or no SOA, involves alot of common sense, a business understanding and knowing your constraints. Ideas are great but we all have to be realistic.