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The
Harmony SOA Maturity Model is a multi-dimensional
model intended for use as a tool in an
organization’s SOA adoption efforts. It can be used as an
assessment tool to gauge where an organization is
today, a model for establishing future state goals of
an organization, or a framework from which an
organization can develop their own assessment model.
SOA
is not something that can be purchased, nor is it
something that can be built.
SOA is about architectural approach that establishes
guidelines and constraints on the systems that will be
built. It is most
typically applied at an enterprise level. Organizations that have
successfully adopted SOA at an enterprise level are
classified as a Service-Oriented Enterprise (SOE).
When
viewed as an approach, rather than as something
concrete, a maturity model can be a very useful tool
in guiding and assessing an organization’s
efforts. The model
describes characteristics of the approach, ranging
from completely ad hoc to a continually
self-optimizing approach.
Other maturity models that have achieved notoriety,
such as the Capability Maturity Model Integration
(CMMI) from the Software Engineering Institute at
Carnegie Mellon University, have a similar approach. Maturity levels are associated
with how something is performed, not necessarily what
was performed. While
technology vendors may have you believe otherwise, you
cannot buy an SOA. Purchasing
infrastructure with specific Web Service capabilities
does not make an organization any more mature with SOA
than an organization that has not.
Likewise, the number of services in an organization is
not an indicator of a maturity level.
SOA maturity is concerned with how the organization
leverages the technologies and services to better meet
the needs of the business, ultimately operating as
one.
The SOA Maturity
Model
The
MomentumSI Maturity Model is a multi-dimensional
model. Rather than give
one set of characteristics, only to find that an
organization has elements from multiple levels, the
maturity model is split into several dimensions, each
of which can be independently assessed.
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