According to Eric Newcomer and Greg Lomow, authors of Understanding SOA with Web Services, service oriented architecture is “an architectural style that guides all aspects of creating and using business processes, packaged as services, throughout their lifecycle, as well as defining and provisioning the IT infrastructure that allows different applications to exchange data and participate in business processes regardless of the operating systems or programming languages underlying those applications.” 

Although this definition seems to have a reasonable amount of industry acceptance, a variety of definitions exist, and you may see more than one reflected in the articles presented in this issue of the Data Strategy Journal.  Regardless of definition, it seems everyone agrees that SOA is vast.  SOA is more than IT or web services or a set of technologies; it is an organizational matrix that is applicable across the board - and it can be confusing.

Service oriented architecture concepts have gained significant traction in IT environments during the past several years.  When applied effectively, these concepts hold the promise of  more flexible development and operational environments, and significant opportunities for improved software reuse and overall IT productivity.

Enterprise Information Management (EIM) is a strategic combination of components and services that weave together and deliver holistic information—consistent, timely, and meaningful—to business processes. From financial services, pharmaceuticals, and manufacturing to retailing, telecommunications, intelligence-gathering, and the energy sector, dozens of industries regard EIM as central to business competitiveness and differentiation

Recently, we had the chance to talk to a rare bird.  By rare bird we mean an industry analyst who also has a track record of working with services, consulting, hardware, and as an IT executive.  As a practitioner, he’s worked on the vendor side and has led large scale IM efforts.  We interviewed David Newman of Gartner.  Mr. Newman is a Research Vice President on Gartner’s Enterprise Architecture team.  He received Gartner’s Thought Leadership Award for his pioneering work on enterprise information management (EIM).   

In recent years I’ve added a new item (most certainly not unique to me) to that humorous old list that begins “You know you’re getting old when…” It’s when you see a concept or discipline you’ve been working with for decades re-named and repackaged as something new for the nth time (where n must be greater than 2). So it is with Master Data Management.