What Do You Believe is the Biggest Inhibitor Today to SOA Adoption?

The inhibitors to an SOA implementation are many and just as varied as there are benefits to an SOA implementation. And while some inhibitors may be more universal than others, which inhibitors affect a given organization is often dependent on the organization itself.

Here are six key inhibitors that I have experienced over the years:

1. Unrealistic or misunderstood goals and expections— As with any substantial project, level-setting expections and gaining a common understanding of the goals/benefits amongst the stakeholders is key to the success of an SOA implementation.


2. Tactical instead of Strategic Approach— SOA is best implemented top-down with a strategic view of the business processes and functions to be exposed as services. Bottom-up implementations too often tend to be overly focused on technoology rather than the business


3. Not putting your money where your mouth is— Let's be realistic: The best intentions won't go too far without money being spent. SOA requires an investment in your resources (people, tools, and technology) to be successful. There is no free lunch in life.
   
4. Poor Governance— Poor or complete lack of governance can lead to service proliferation, which can ultimately lead to more severe problems with data integrity, meeting SLAs, and privacy/security breaches.
   
5. Organizational Power Struggles— In an SOA the focus moves away from individual applications and data stores to more business-oriented services that may cross business unit and organizational boundaries. This breakdown in application and data barriers may cause heartburn to the owners of those applications and data, who may see this as a challenge to their power see advantage in hindering the SOA implementation.
   
6. Fear and Ignorance— SOA is surrounded by many misconceptions regarding exactly what it is and what it takes. Too much has been said about all the technical details/variations leading to the misguided belief that any SOA implementation must have "all that" technology and complexity. Ignorance breeds fear, which then becomes a major inhibitor.

But these are just six of the inhibitors that I have seen; there are many more. Remember, each organization is unique in its own way and the challenges it will face as it implements an SOA will depend on its unique culture and history.

* Originally posted on ebizQ's SOA Forum on May 20, 2009