Benefits of SOA - Web Services

Architecturally, the modern enterprise architecture design could involve:

• Service Oriented
• Event-Driven
• Loosely coupled
• Aligned with life cycle support processes
• Able to support assembly and integration
• Able to leverage existing applications and infrastructure

SOAs offer the following advantages over traditional approaches to distributed computing:

• They offer business services across the platforms
• They provide location independence
• Services need not be at a particular system or particular network
• Completely loosely coupled approach
• Authentication and authorization support at every level
• The search and connectivity to other services is dynamic

Short-term benefits of implementation:

• Enhances reliability
• Reduces hardware acquisition costs
• Leverages existing development skills
• Accelerates movement to standards-based server and application consolidation
• Provides a data bridge between incompatible technologies

Long-term benefits of implementation:

• Provides the ability to build composite applications
• Creates a self-healing infrastructure that reduces management costs
• Provides truly real-time decision-making applications
• Enables the compilation of a unified taxonomy of information across an enterprise and its customer and partners

Benefits from the perspective of Business Value

• Ability to more quickly meet customer demands
• Lower costs associated with the acquisition and maintenance of technology
• Management of business functionality closer to the business units
• Leverages existing investments in technology
• Reduces reliance on expensive custom development