SOA Advisor
The New 80/20 Rule
SOAs are changing the meaning of what custom applications are and how they'll be acquired and are forcing a new way of looking at how to construct applications and composite services.
- By Dana Gardner
- 07/01/2007
Service-oriented architectures, or SOAs, are not only forcing a new way of looking at how to construct applications and composite services -- they are now changing the meaning of what custom applications are and how they'll be acquired. This change has significant ramifications for IT developers, architects and operators as they seek a new balance between "packaged" and "custom" applications and maintaining their autonomy.
In with the New
As more applications are broken down into modular component services, and as more services are newly created specifically for use and reuse in composite business services, the old 80/20 rule needs to make way for a new 80/20 rule.
The old 80/20 rule for development holds that 80 percent of the time and effort of engineering an application goes into the 20 percent requiring the most customization. Perhaps that's why we have the 90/10 rule, too, which holds that 90 percent of the execution time of a computer program is spent executing 10 percent of the code.
SOA skews the formula by making more elements of an application's stated requirements readily available as a service. A funny thing happens as those services are acquired from many sources, including more specialized ones (from third-party developers or vendors). At first the amount of needed customization is high -- maybe 80 percent (a perversion of the old rule) -- either because there aren't many services available or because the services are too general and not specific to a specialized vertical industry or niche function.
Then, over time, with investment, the balance shifts toward the 50/50 point, and reuse forms a majority of a composite applications or business processes, even for highly specialized applications. These composite functions then become business-focused service frameworks that can be reused and adjusted. Those architects that gain experience within business niches and verticals to create such frameworks can make significant reuse of the services.
They, and their employers, enjoy tipping points where the majority of their development comes from existing services. The higher they can drive the percentage of reuse, the more scale and productivity they gain. They become the go-to organization for cost-efficient applications in a specific industry, or for specialized business processes.
These organizations benefit from the new 80/20 rule of SOA: The last 20 percent of customization soon takes only 50 percent of the total time to value. The difference from 80 percent is huge in terms of who does SOA best for specialized business processes. And it makes the decision all the more difficult over how to best exploit SOA: internally or via third parties, integrators or vendors.
Changing the Game
But with SOA the same efficiencies of scale and reuse can be brought to much more specific and customized applications. And those applications, if implemented as Web services, can be ripped up, shifted, mashed, adjusted and changed rapidly if you know enough about them. The flexible orchestration of loosely coupled services means that development teams can better meet the changing needs of businesses.
A big question for me is, which development teams will be benefiting most from the new 80/20 rule? After attending the recent IBM Innovate conference in May, it's clear to me that specialization in SOA-related business processes via services frameworks will change the nature of custom application development. IBM and its services divisions are banking that the emerging middle ground between packaged applications and good old customization opens up a new category they and their partners can quickly dominate with such offerings as WebSphere Business Services Fabric.
If IT departments inside of enterprises and their developer corps cannot produce such flexible, efficient services-driven business processes, their business executives will evaluate alternatives as they seek agility. Such a market, in essence, forces a race to SOA proficiency and economy. That race is now getting started, pitting traditional application providers, internal custom developers, vertical application packagers and systems integrators against one another.
Executives will need to balance the enticements of outside organizations possessing a powerful SOA arsenal against the need to innovate in private and to keep those innovations inside. They must be able to use what's available on an acquired basis to compete, but not so much that they lose their unique competitive advantage.
Internal IT must advance in SOA proficiencies as well, if only to be able to keep up with the third parties that will be servicing the competition.
We really have entered a race to SOA benefits and efficiencies. Time to lace up your running shoes once again.
About the Author
Dana Gardner is president and principal analyst at Interarbor Solutions, an enterprise IT analysis, market research and consulting firm. Gardner tracks and analyzes Web services, application-development tools and application optimization techniques. He is also the producer of the podcast series, BriefingsDirect.