You would think the "environmental movement" was just invented with all of the talk about "global warming" and "carbon footprints." What's in style now is to be "green" or putting conservation into practice in your daily life. No, I'm not going to focus on this issue, that's a topic for many other blogs, but I would like to look at how SOA relates to conservation, or being green.

Truth-be-told, I'm not green by nature; however I am a business man. Thus, with gas approaching four bucks a gallon, I made the shift from an SUV that get's 11 MPG to a crossover that gets 30 MPG. I'm not ready for a Hybrid yet, just seems too conformist if you ask me.

So, if everything is about conservation, what does SOA have to offer? Everything really. Let's face it millions of dollars are tossed away everyday on wasted motion in the world of business…products that require more resources than they should during the manufacturing process, excessive use of the transportation and shipping systems, and of course the continued use of too much paper.

The fact of the matter is that the more efficient a business is, the fewer resources, natural and otherwise it will consume. Thus, the better the business is automated, and business processes optimized, the more efficient it will be. The primary of objective of an SOA is both efficiency and agility through architectural rejuvenation, we've beat that to death here.

So, is SOA green? Perhaps, considering that businesses that practice both good IT architecture, including SOA, will be rewarded with business processes that are both optimized and changeable to align with the business. Thus, anything that the business does will require the fewest amount of resources and dollars, and you can call that green no matter if you mean saving the environment or cash in the bank…both are very good.

Posted by Dave Linthicum on March 24, 2008 10:16 AM