In the News
Joe McKendrick's quotes in the press | Click here for latest coverage | E-mail: joe@mckendrickresearch.com | Home page: McKendrick & Associates |
TechTarget, SearchSOA.com, May 29, 2008
"If service-oriented architecture (SOA) is being impacted by fluctuations in the U.S. economy, which is experiencing spiking oil and gasoline prices and falling consumer confidence, analysts covering the space see little evidence of it so far. In an informal survey, analysts in the SOA space said they are seeing little recessionary impact, although it may be too early to tell. "I can't say I've seen any effects either way on SOA projects," said Joe McKendrick analyst with McKendrick Research, when asked if there were good or bad economic impacts to the architectural approach. "But, there hasn't been agreement as to whether there is even a recession taking place in the economy at large. I've heard this called the 'unrecession,' which sums it up pretty well. More likely, there has been a slowdown in some sectors. If so, there have been little or no ripple effects on corporate IT budgets, so far." He notes that the recession earlier in this decade reduced IT budgets and staff to lean and mean levels where they remain with little room for cost cutting in most cases. "Corporate IT budgets did feel the sting of recession between 2000-2003, and as a result, scaled back dramatically in purchasing and staffing, while increasing outsourcing," McKendrick noted. "This leanness exists to this day, so there aren't many places where IT needs to or can get cut." Looking back, the analyst said that recession gave birth to SOA. "The IT recession of the early 2000s was also the impetus that lit the fire under service-oriented architecture in the first place, since SOA was seen as a way to consolidate new application development within a standardized framework, as well as leverage existing legacy assets," McKendrick said. "Even when things got better in recent years, companies still were concerned with increasing the efficiency and productivity of IT, and SOA is seen as a way to do it."
How SOA May Thrive in a Recession
"We don't know yet exactly how companies will leverage SOA in tough economic times. In its current incarnation, SOA as we know it has only been around for four or five years – so it's only known an expanding economy. So companies have had the luxury, if you want to call it that, of devoting additional resources to kick-start SOA efforts. I would expect, then, to see a mixed scenario for SOA adoption in the event of rough economic times. It's probably going to break both ways, depending on how far a company has progressed down the SOA path. Many companies would pull back resources from what they view as non-critical or futures-oriented activities, and that may include SOA. This will likely be the case in companies that either haven't established a clear, specific business case for SOA or just haven't quite got SOA yet. For other companies, SOA may prove its mettle, offering a means to streamline processes and reduce redundancies within their development and integration operations. When times get rough, companies get most skittish about new hiring. A case can be made for SOA efforts that enable organizations to continue to run or even expand current operations without adding additional staff to build new services or maintain them."
A Hodgepodge Approach to Verifying Web Users
"In this age of data thievery, most security experts will tell you strong authentication is a must -- especially when the company offers Web-based services. But if a recent survey is any indication, developers are struggling to adopt methods that are consistent across the enterprise. A lack of IT staff and support from the business side of the operation is one reason, said Joe McKendrick, an analyst with Santa Cruz, Calif.-based research firm Evans Data Corp. Mergers and acquisitions are another factor. As companies merge, a lot of legacy systems come along for the ride, making it harder to develop consistent authentication procedures."
Web Services Authentication Still a Home-Grown Affair, Says Survey
"According to Evans Data Corporation, authentication remains the biggest problem for Web services security. Evans Data Corporation reports in its Spring 2005 Web Services/SOA Development Survey that developers working on authentication methods for Web services are more likely to rely on their own custom-developed methods, rather than industry-standard methods like SSL or SOAP. Almost one in four developers (23%) say they have devised their own security mechanisms to protect Web services transactions, versus 22% using SSL, and 9% using SOAP headers. Additionally, the survey finds that, for a quarter of developers, authentication remains the largest problem in Web services security schemas.
Eight of ten companies (79%) say they encounter organizational headwinds when attempting to move their Web services efforts forward. About one out of five respondents (19%) also say they can't find enough IT talent versed in Web services development.
"We found that a majority of companies are not sharing their Web services with other business units across the enterprise," said Joe McKendrick, Evans Data's Web services/SOA analyst. "This is a result of not having enough IT talent with Web services skills, as well as management buy-in to the concept. Web services and SOA need skilled evangelists to help drive the adoption of the technology forward. This isn't happening yet."
Study Finds Changing DBA Roles in 2005
"A shift is underway among top database professionals, where DBAs and devs are focusing not just on their database silo -- but on how the database enables “end-to-end” applications. A report from Evans Data Corp. has found that more than half of all DBAs are working with web services, XML, middleware and even application performance tasks. Integration Developer News spoke with Evans Data study author Joe McKendrick to get some highlights:
Databases Converging with Web Services: "There is definitely a lot of convergence between web services and databases," McKendrick told IDN. "A healthy majority of respondents told us they plan to enable their database to function as web services so that someone else can use a web services to reach in and get data," he said.. In specific, Evans found 58% of DBAs surveyed said they are using (or will use in 2005) web services to expose or invoke database operations. The most likely database operations to be invoked are: Stored procedures, 22%; SQL Query web services, 18%; and XML Query web services, 15%.
Changing Roles for DBAs: All this attention by enterprise IT to make data more integratable is also changing the roles of DBAs, developers and middleware experts within the enterprise, Evans found. "We're finding that the role of DBAs is definitely evolving," McKendrick said. "While the DBA is still tasked with overseeing a database's performance, we found that more and more are also involved in a development or integration role."
In specific, Evans found 58% of DBAs said they expect to be involved in a lot more "up the stack" responsibilities, according to McKendrick, including applications tuning and database integration. "Bottom line: Companies are saying, 'We expect to our database and applications to be up 24x7,’ and that means DBAs need to know more about how apps work -- not just how databases work. And that means DBAs are learning more about security, middleware integration, and other tasks that provide 'end-to-end' performance.”
All told, McKendrick sums up the Winter 2004 findings as follows: "These technology and cost-conscience factors are providing the DBA/developer all sorts of prime opportunities to further their IT careers by adding integration-related skills," he told IDN.
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