April 3, 2006 (Computerworld) It's wasn't so much the maturation of the technology that prompted Jim Haney, CIO of Harley-Davidson Inc., to move to a service-oriented architecture (SOA); it was the realization that, “I don’t have a lot of other tricks to pull out of my IT toolbox.”
Haney opted to begin to “decouple” various IT systems at the Milwaukee, Wis.-based motorcycle manufacturer and move toward an SOA after deciding enterprises can't keep building applications the same way they have for the past 20 years, he said.
Haney spoke during a news conference today where IBM announced a slew of new products, product upgrades and services focused on the SOA market.
“Projects have to show returns much quicker,” he said. “You need to be a lot more flexible.”
Harley-Davidson now is testing IBM WebShere tools that it will use as part of an SOA initiative to build business processes from Web services so that they can be quickly changed to match market fluctuations, Haney said.
When the SOA is fully in place, for example, Haney said the IT department will be able to change a business process to meet the marketing department’s needs – like revamping advertising in the spring when people are more likely to buy -- without having to change underlying IT systems.
“By decoupling all those applications, we can bring these [processes] to the forefront as services. …We can change one, [and] we do it quickly,” he said. “We can be a lot more responsive to the business.”
Two months after Harley-Davidson began working with IBM’s consulting arm, its own employees were building composite applications out of services, he said.
IBM touted 11 new products – some of which have been previously announced – and 20 enhancements that officials said will help users overcome the entry barriers to building an SOA. Steve Mills, IBM’s senior vice president and group executive of its software division, said today's announcements showcase the company’s push in an SOA market that is experiencing double-digit growth. That compares to the single-digit growth of the overall IT market over the past decade.
While some products are shipping now, others will be available over the next three to six months.
For example, WebSphere Portal 6.0 will integrate IBM Workplace and collaborative technologies to make it easier for users to build composite applications that can be tailored by industry, role or task. The latest version also supports Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (AJAX) for building interactive Web applications and includes new support to simplify the integration of business processes.
IBM’s WebSphere Business Monitor 6.0 will include business alerts, reports that combine real-time performance and historical analysis and scorecards to track the status and metrics of projects. The new version of IBM’s application server, WebSphere Application Server 6.1, will add features designed to reduce the complexity of an SOA as it is expanded to include applications like voice, video and instant messaging communications, IBM officials said. It also will have new security features, including default security configurations and a default user registry for identity management.
IBM also has upgraded its Enterprise Service Bus, WebSphere Process Server and WebSphere Information Server.
Bob Berckman, assistant vice president of automotive parts manufacturer Pep Boys in Philadelphia, Pa., also spoke at today's news conference. He described his company’s two-year project with IBM to replace legacy business applications at its 593 stores with an SOA built with IBM’s WebSphere application server and its WebSphere broker for enterprise messaging. Pep Boys also replaced its old IT infrastructure -- built with technology from The SCO Group and Sybase -- with IBM technology.
By building a Web services-based integration layer, the company could incrementally replace individual pieces of its infrastructure -- such as a point-of-sale application – while keeping other legacy business applications running smoothly, Berckman said. The company is now installing new inventory software without affecting the point-of-sale application, he added.
“As we incrementally deploy the new applications, we connect to those via an integration layer using XML and calling legacy store procedures to keep those applications functioning,” he said.
In addition, by re-using common services such as a tax component in multiple applications, the company cuts down on development time and ensures consistency, he said.
“As time goes on and you’re able to re-use more and more code and bring solutions quicker to the business - that is where the ROI is,” Berckman added.