Yesterday at the SOA Executive Forum I moderated the "Bridging the Gap between Process and Services" panel. Basically the idea was that:

"SOA is a conversation between IT and business. Mapping out business processes is an essential first step, but converting that map into an array of services is tricky business."

The other panelists were:

Mighael Botha, Technology Evangelist, Software AG

Marvin Richardson, Managing Director & Co-Founder, Trexin Group, LLC

Derek Sampson, Sr. Director, Back Office Architecture, Comcast

Sumitro Sarkar, VP, Technology Strategy, Thomson Financial

Elizabeth Book already beat me to the blog punch on this, but I wanted to add my perspective, and summarize the comments from the panel.

• SOA has always included business processes, so this is not a new concept. However, many people think it's new.
• Processes are able to abstract distributed services turning them into solutions within a SOA.
• Volatility should exist at the process layer, according to me, however Marvin also thought that in some cases volatility can exist at the services layer as well.
• Performance a testing should be considered always, not matter how you implement your processes.
• Standards are helpful, but should not control your processes layer completely.
• Planning and good architecture lead the day.

Good set of brains on the panel, I thought it was very interesting.

Posted by Dave Linthicum on May 17, 2007 05:22 AM