According to a recent survey by TecWeb conducted during the third quarter of 2008, all is not well with the state of Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) deployments. Problems with reduced productivity, damaged customer relationships and poor web application performance are the chief complaints.
CA, Inc.today announced the results of an independent survey about the state of Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) deployments, and the increasingly important role Application Performance Management plays in the success of complex Web-based services. The survey, conducted online by TechWeb in the third quarter of 2008, revealed that many organizations are concerned and challenged with SOA application performance issues that can negatively impact customer service levels, relationships, IT and line-of-business operations productivity, and revenue.
The CA-sponsored, vendor-neutral survey targeted organizations in the U.S., U.K., France, Germany and Australia that had either already deployed or are planning to deploy SOA based applications. A total of 615 technology professionals ranging from CIOs to IT management staff participated in the survey.
“The survey found that while SOA deployments are on the rise and have achieved broad market adoption, there is a general lack of planning to manage the added complexity they introduce in production environments,” said Prabhjot Singh, vice president of marketing for CA’s Application Performance Management business unit.
“Mission-critical applications must be proactively managed with the total customer experience in mind to achieve optimum service levels. A comprehensive approach that links business value to Application Performance Management helps ensure that SOA projects are successful once in production and also enables rapid detection and diagnosis of application slowdowns and failures, to better manage the end-user experience.”
Lack of proper measurement has led to many organizational challenges. According to the survey:
- 54% of respondents report that difficulties with problem resolution reduce productivity in IT and line-of-business operations.
- 48% of respondents cite that application downtime is damaging relationships with customers.
- 46% of respondents report that poor Web application performance is costing them revenue.
The survey also revealed that knowing about an application failure before receiving a call from a dissatisfied customer is a key to success. Respondents indicated that the ability to measure the business impact of failed transactions, as well as collaborating on problem solving across silos using a single set of performance data to pinpoint probable cause are highly valued characteristics of a successful SOA performance management solution.
“When organizations choose to deploy SOA applications, many really aren’t aware of how different SOA is from traditional software systems. This is especially true of SOA’s monitoring and management requirements,” said Julie Craig, Application Management Lead with Enterprise Management Associates.
“This survey confirms EMA’s research, which indicates that many organizations deploy SOA first, then worry about managing SOA services later. To their detriment, they wait to adopt SOA management tools, and this negatively impacts the service quality of the implementation.”
Complete survey results are available online at http://www.ca.com/soasurvey. Additional SOA performance resources are available at http://soa-performance.techweb.com.