IT departments are under pressure to spend less, deliver more and operate “at the speed of business.”  This has led many organizations towards innovative technology solutions – such as virtualization and cloud computing – that are enabling them to consolidate IT systems and applications.  As exciting as these innovations may be, however, none of them can be deployed successfully without a comprehensive, strategic and well-planned approach to data migration.  The stakes are incredibly high:  According to the research firm Bloor Research, more than half of all data migration projects experience cost overruns or delays in deployment.  A poorly planned or poorly executed data migration initiative can delay the rollout of new applications, hamper compliance and business continuity goals, and cause IT departments to miss budget targets and cause businesses to miss opportunities.

In part 1, posted last week, I reported the findings of a recent survey which states that the use of SOA (service oriented architecture) is on the rise and also the role of MDM (Master Data Management) in conjunction with SOA.  In part 2, I discuss the argument that, together with MDM and cloud computing, SOA is becoming the method of choice for data management within the industry.

MDM and SOA efforts are starting to come together, led by enterprise architects who realise these initiatives need to coincide.  People designing services are working with data architects and enterprise architects so it‘s all one initiative; you can‘t worry about the data later on.  Previously, SOA people would deliver services but the data coming out wouldn‘t work or would be dirty or there was no validation.  People realised that you have to get the master data people involved from the beginning.  Clever organisations get master data teams and SOA teams together and say ‘Thou shalt work together’ from day one.

SOA is still going strong.  Businesses that already use SOA are expanding their SOA initiatives and new businesses are starting to adopt SOA and to implement SOA technologies.  Another interesting fact is that the first-time SOA infrastructure purchase is shifting from ESBs to other technologies.

According to a recent survey from Forrester analytics, SOA still has strong penetration and high satisfaction rates.  About 75% of enterprise respondents and 80% of small to midsized businesses that responded are planning on expanding their use of SOA.  Back in 2009, the Global 200 enterprises had shown a drop in satisfaction.  Only 18% responded that SOA was meeting all or most of their expectations.  In 2010, this number rose to 33%, which is more in line with earlier years.